HEART  OF  EUROPE 


HEART  OF  EUROPE 


BY 

RALPH  ADAMS  CRAM,  LITT.D.,  LL.D, 

F.A.I.A.,   A.N.A.,   F.B.G.S. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1916 


1,1 


COPYBIGHT,  1915,  BT 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
Published  October,  1915 


TO 

E.  S.  C. 


WHO  SOME   DAT   MAT  KNOW  THE 

HEART   OF   EUROPE 
AND   TO   WHOM  THIS  BOOK   MAT   BE  A   DIM  RECALLING 

"OP  OLD,  UNHAPPT,  FAR-OFF  THINGS 
AND  BATTLES  LONG  AGO*' 

WHITEHALL 
29  AUGUST,   1915 


331259 


THE  author  wishes  to  express  his  great  sense 
of  personal  obligation  to  Miss  Gertrude  Schirmer 
and  Mr.  Emil  P.  Albrecht  for  their  kindness  in 
furnishing  illustrations  that  otherwise  could  not 
have  been  obtained. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.    A  SANCTUARY  LAID  WASTE 1 

II.    THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM 15 

III.  FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT 37 

IV.  THE  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS 63 

V.  THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART      .....  84 

VI.    AMIENS  AND  REIMS 109 

VII.  THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING  .    .    .  128 

VIII.     COAL  AND  IRON 149 

IX.    A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES 172 

X.    MARGARET  OF  MALINES 191 

XI.  THE  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS     .    .    .  219 

XII.    GOTHIC  SCULPTURE 238 

XIII.    THE  ALLIED  ARTS 256 

XIV.    ART  IN  THE  RHINELAND 278 

XV.    THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN 296 

XVI.  Ex  TENEBRIS  Lux  310 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Reims Frontispiece 

Facing  page 

The  hall  of  the  University  of  Louvain 12 

The  chapel  at  Aix 30 

St.  Bavon's  Tower,  Ghent 44 

The  Quai  aux  Herbes,  Ghent 50 

Bruges,  from  the  Quai  du  Rosaire 54 

The  Duke  of  Alva,  Moro  van  Dashorst 68 

Jumieges 86 

Loon 98 

Beauvais 106 

Amiens 112 

Reims 116 

The  destroyed  Hotel  de  ViUe  of  Arras 130 

The  destroyed  Cloth  Hall  of  Ypres 132 

Bruges,  Hotel  de  Vitte 134 

The  Hotel  de  Ville  of  Louvain 138 

A  chimney-piece  from  Courtrai 164 

A  canal  in  Malines 174 

The  belfry  of  Bruges 184 

zi 


xii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing  page 

The  tower  of  St.  Rombaut,  Malines 202 

A  detail  from  the  church  at  Brou      .     .     .     , 216 

Our  Lady,  from  the  Tryptich  at  Ghent,  Hubert  van  Eyck  .     .     .  226 

A  drawing  of  St.  Barbara,  Jan  van  Eyck 232 

A  Memling  altar-piece 234 

Madonna  and  Child  with  St.  Luke,  Van  der  Weyden  ....  236 

A  head,  now  destroyed,  from  Reims 242 

Three  destroyed  figures  from  Reims 250 

Fifteenth-century  Flemish  tapestry 262 

Worms 282 

Cologne 286 

Strasbourg 288 

Bacharach  on  the  Rhine 292 

Schloss  Eltz  300 


HEART  OF  EUROPE 


HEART  OF  EUROPE 


A   SANCTUARY   LAID   WASTE 

BETWEEN  the  Seine  and  the  Rhine  lay  once 
a  beautiful  land  wherein  more  history  was 
made,  and  recorded  in  old  monuments  full  of 
grace  and  grandeur  and  fancy,  than  in  almost 
any  other  region  of  the  world.  The  old  names 
were  best,  for  each  aroused  memory  and  begot 
strange  dreams:  Flanders,  Brabant,  the  Pala- 
tinate; Picardy,  Valois,  Champagne,  Franche- 
Comte;  Artois,  Burgundy,  and  Bar.  And  the 
town  names  ring  with  the  same  sonorous  melody, 
evoking  the  ghosts  of  a  great  and  indelible  past: 
Bruges,  Ghent,  Louvain,  and  Liege;  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  Coblentz,  and  Treves;  Ypres  and  Lille, 
Tournai  and  Fontenay,  Arras  and  Malplaquet; 
Laon,  Nancy,  Verdun,  and  Varennes;  Amiens, 
Soissons,  and  Reims.  Caesar,  Charlemagne,  St. 
Louis,  Napoleon,  with  proconsuls,  paladins,  cru- 
saders, and  marshals  unnumbered;  kings,  prince- 
bishops,  monks,  knights,  and  aureoled  saints  take 


ft  ;  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

form  and  shape  again  at  the  clang  of  the  splen- 
did names. 

And  in  all  these  places,  and  by  all  these  men 
(and  elsewhere,  endlessly,  and  by  hands  un- 
numbered), two  thousand  years  had  wrought 
their  visible  manifestation  in  abbey,  church,  and 
cathedral;  in  manor  and  palace  and  castle,  in 
trade  hall  and  civic  hall,  and  in  library  and  semi- 
nary and  school. 

Wars,  great  and  small,  have  swept  it  from 
river  to  river,  but  much  has  been  free  for  a  cen- 
tury and  all  of  it  free  for  forty  years.  Under 
every  oppression  and  every  adversity  it  has 
thriven  and  grown  rich,  not  in  material  things 
alone,  but  in  those  commodities  that  have  ac- 
tual intrinsic  value;  and  a  short  year  ago  it  was 
the  most  prosperous,  peaceful,  and  industrious 
quarter  of  Europe.  Whatever  the  war,  however 
violent  the  opposing  agencies,  its  priceless  rec- 
ords of  architecture  and  other  arts  were  piously 
or  craftily  spared,  except  when  the  madness  of 
the  French  Revolution  swept  over  its  convents 
and  cloisters,  leaving  Coxyde,  Villers,  St.  Bavon, 
St.  Jean  des  Vignes,  the  Abbaye  des  Lys,  dead 
witnesses  of  the  faith  that  had  built  them  and 
the  spared  monuments  as  well. 


A  SANCTUARY  LAID  WASTE  3 

And  now  a  thing  calling  itself  the  highest 
civilisation  in  Europe,  with  the  name  of  God  in 
its  mouth,  again  sweeps  the  already  well-swept 
land.  In  defiance  of  Peace  Palaces  and  Con- 
ferences; in  spite  of  the  bankers  of  the  world 
and  their  double-knotted  purse-strings;  in  spite 
of  a  socialism  that  said  war  should  not  happen 
again,  and  an  evolutionary  philosophy  that  said 
it  could  not  happen  again  (men  now  being  so 
civilised),  the  world  is  at  war,  and  the  old  arena 
of  Europe  flames  as  at  Armageddon,  while  those 
things  too  sacred  for  pillage  and  destruction  by 
the  armies  and  the  commanders  of  five  centuries 
are  given  over  to  annihilation  in  order  that  the 
peril  of  the  Slav,  on  the  other  side  of  Europe,  may 
not  menace  the  treasured  civilisation  of  the  West, 
whose  vestiges  even  now  are  blazing  pyres,  or 
cinders  and  ashes ! 

It  is  significant  that  thus  far  the  heavy  hand 
of  the  pursuer  has  fallen  notably  on  two  things: 
the  school  and  the  church;  for  these  are  two  of 
the  three  things  he  most  fears  and  hates.  Not 
the  school,  as  with  him,  where  secularism,  through 
economic  materialism  and  a  sinister  philosophy, 
breeds  a  race  as  unprincipled  as  it  is  efficient  and 
fearless,  nor  the  church,  as  with  him,  where  in- 


4  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

tellectualism  ousts  faith,  expediency  morals,  and 
God  is  glad  "ably  to  support"  the  victorious 
battalions  of  a  crown  prince.  Quite  otherwise; 
the  school  that  teaches  both  independence  and 
regard  for  law,  with  religion  as  the  only  basis  for 
right  conduct,  and  the  Church  that  teaches  humil- 
ity and  the  reality  of  sin,  and  the  subservience  of 
all  rulers,  whether  king  or  parliament,  to  the 
religion  and  the  authority  of  a  living  Christ 
speaking  to-day  as  He  spoke  on  the  Mount  of 
Olives. 

When  the  University  of  Louvain  passed  in  the 
smoke  and  flame  of  a  murdered  city;  when  the 
Church  of  St.  Pierre  and  the  Cathedral  of  Malines 
and  the  Shrine  of  Our  Lady  of  Reims  were  shat- 
tered by  bombs  and  swept  by  devouring  fire, 
there  was  something  in  it  all  other  than  the  grim 
necessity  of  a  savage  war;  there  was  the  symbol 
of  a  new  thing  in  the  world,  built  on  all  Louvain, 
Malines,  and  Reims  had  denied,  and  destroying 
the  very  outward  show  of  what  could  not  exist  on 
earth  side  by  side  with  its  potent  and  dominant 
negation. 

Reims  Cathedral  "stood  in  the  line  of  gun- 
fire," it  was  "a  landmark  and  unfortunately 
could  not  escape,"  it  had  been  "fortified  by  the 


A  SANCTUARY  LAID  WASTE  5 

enemy  and  therefore  could  not  be  spared."  All 
true,  each  statement,  and  thus:  It  stood  between 
a  brute  power  founded  on  Bismarckian  force  and 
Nietzschean  antichristian  philosophy,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other  nations  newly  conscious 
of  their  Christianity,  ashamed  of  their  backslid- 
ing, and  ready  to  fight  to  the  death  for  what  had 
made  them.  It  was  a  landmark,  a  vast,  visible 
showing  forth  of  a  great  Christian  spirit  and  a 
greater  Christian  principle,  and  as  such  it  must 
go  down.  It  was  fortified,  as  every  church  is 
fortified,  to  fight  against  the  devil  and  all  his 
works,  and  therefore,  equally  with  the  allied 
forces  behind  it,  it  was  fighting  against  a  common 
enemy.  If  by  its  ruin  it  can  make  this  universally 
and  eternally  clear,  we  can  see  it  go  without  a 
tear  or  a  regret,  for,  like  the  martyr  in  the  Roman 
arena,  it  has  accomplished  its  work. 

Thus  far,  of  the  great  cities,  Liege,  Louvain, 
Malines,  Ypres,  Arras,  and  Reims  are  gone,  with 
the  greater  part  of  their  treasured  art,  while  Laon, 
Soissons,  and  Namur  have  been  grievously 
wrecked.  Apparently,  Amiens,  Noyon,  Bruges, 
and  Ghent  are  now  safe,  but  endless  opportuni- 
ties open  for  destruction  and  pillage,  and  we  may 
well  be  prepared  for  irreparable  loss  before  the 


6  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

invader  is  hurled  back  across  his  natural  river 
frontier.  Let  us  consider,  not  what  already  has 
been  annihilated,  but  the  kind  of  art  it  was,  so 
measuring,  in  a  degree,  the  quality  of  our  loss — 
and  of  what  we  still  may  lose. 

First  of  all,  there  are  the  towns  themselves, 
for  all  art  is  not  concentrated  in  hotel  de  ville 
and  cathedral;  it  shows  itself  sometimes  in  more 
appealing  guise  in  the  river  villages  and  proud 
cities,  and  its  testimony  to  a  great  past  is  here 
equally  potent.  Ypres,  Malines,  Dinant,  Ter- 
monde,  and  Huy,  all  of  which  are  gone,  were 
treasures  that  belonged  to  all  the  world;  Namur 
and  Plombieres  we  could  not  spare,  and  as  for 
Bruges  and  Ghent,  even  apart  from  their  ex- 
quisite architecture  and  their  treasures  of  paint- 
ing, the  soul  shudders  at  what  might  happen 
there  were  they  involved  in  the  retreat  of  a  dis- 
organised army,  when  one  considers  what  hap- 
pened to  Liege  and  Louvain  in  its  victorious  ad- 
vance. All  Belgium  and  Luxembourg,  all  Picardy 
and  Champagne  are,  or  were,  rich  with  lovely 
little  towns  and  villages,  each  a  work  of  art  in 
itself;  they  are  shrivelling  like  a  garden  under 
the  first  frost,  and,  it  may  be,  in  a  little  while 
none  will  remain. 


A  SANCTUARY  LAID  WASTE  7 

The  major  architecture  of  this  unhappy  land 
falls  into  three  classes  and  three  periods  of  time. 
Oldest  and  most  priceless  are  the  churches,  and 
these  are  of  the  twelfth,  thirteenth,  and  four- 
teenth centuries,  the  ages  when  religion  was  one 
and  secure  and  was  building  a  great  civilisation 
that  we  would  fain  see  equalled  again.  Then 
come  the  town  halls  and  guildhalls  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  each  speaking  for  the  proud  freedom  of 
merchant  and  burgher,  when  the  hold  of  religion 
was  weakening  a  little,  and  the  first  signs  were 
showing  themselves  of  what,  in  the  end,  was  to 
have  issue  in  this  war  of  wars;  finally  come  the 
town  houses  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  in  all  their  quaint  individuality  and 
their  overriding  self-esteem,  though  fine  still,  and 
with  hints  of  the  great  art  that  already  had 
passed. 

Brussels  is  full  of  these,  and  Antwerp;  Lou- 
vain  had  them,  and  Ypres,  Termonde,  Arras, 
and  Charleville,  only  a  few  months  ago;  in  Bruges 
and  Ghent  they  fill  whole  streets  and  stand  in 
silent  accusation  of  what  we  of  the  nineteenth  and 
twentieth  centuries  have-  offered  as  our  contri- 
bution to  the  housing  of  civilisation. 

Of  the  civic  halls  the  list  is  endless:    Brussels, 


8  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Malines,  Bruges,  Ypres,  Ghent,  Antwerp,  Mons, 
Audenaarde,  Termonde  and  Liege;  Compiegne,  St. 
Quentin,  Arras,  Valenciennes;  ranging  from  the 
grave  solemnity  of  the  enormous  and  wide-spread 
Ypres  to  the  lacy  fantasticism  of  Louvain  and 
Audenaarde.  Architecture  has  gone  far  from  the 
Salle  Synodale  of  Sens  and  the  Merveille  of 
Mont-St. -Michel,  and  it  has  not  gone  altogether 
well,  but  how  significant  these  stone  fancies  are 
of  the  abounding  life  and  the  splendid  pride  and 
the  open-handed  beneficence  of  the  fifteenth-cen- 
tury burghers,  who  loved  their  towns  and  bent  the 
rebellious  masonry  to  their  will,  working  it  into 
a  kind  of  stony  lace  and  embroidery  to  the  glory 
of  trade  and  civic  spirit !  If  we  should  lose  them 
now,  as  we  almost  lost  Louvain,  standing  in  the 
midst  of  the  roaring  flame  and  drifting  smoke, 
while  tall  churches  and  rich  universities  and  fair 
old  houses  crumbled  and  died  around  it,  what 
should  we  not  lose? 

And  the  churches,  those  matchless  monuments, 
four,  five,  and  six  centuries  old,  where  genera- 
tions have  brought  all  their  best  to  glorify  God, 
where  glass  and  sculpture,  tapestries  and  fretted 
woodwork,  pictures,  and  gold  and  silver  wrought 
cunningly  into  immortal  art — how  are  we  to 


A  SANCTUARY  LAID  WASTE  9 

speak  of  these,  or  think  of  them,  with  St.  Pierre 
of  Louvain  and  St.  Rombaut  of  Malines  still 
smoking  with  their  dying  fires,  while  piece  by 
piece  the  calcined  stone  falls  in  the  embers,  and 
while  Reims,  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world, 
stands  gaunt  and  shattered,  wrecked  by  bombs, 
swept  by  fire,  its  windows  that  rivalled  Chartres 
split  into  irremediable  ruin,  its  statues  devastated 
that  once  stood  on  a  level  with  the  sculptures  of 
Greece  ? 

The  catastrophe  itself  is  so  unthinkable  that  the 
world  does  not  now  half  realise  it.  And  yet,  what 
of  all  that  remains  in  the  pathway — backward 
or  forward — of  Attila  and  his  Huns  ?  St.  Gudule 
of  Brussels,  St.  Bavon  of  Ghent,  and  the  cathe- 
drals of  Antwerp,  Tongres,  and  Tournai;  and  in 
France  that  matchless  sequence  of  which  Reims 
was  once  the  central  jewel,  Soissons,  Senlis  and 
Noyon,  St.  Remi,  Amiens,  and  Laon;  here,  with 
Reims,  are  seven  churches  such  as  man .  never 
surpassed,  and  equalled  only  at  Paris,  Chartres, 
Coutances,  and  Bourges;  each  is  of  a  different 
timbre,  each  a  different  expression  of  the  greatest 
century  of  Christian  civilisation,  and,  given  the 
opportunity,  there  is  no  reason  why  each  should 
not  suffer  the  fate  of  Reims. 


10  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

There  is  a  thin  and  sinister  philosophy,  akin 
to  that  of  Treitschke  and  Nietzsche  (which  is  for 
to-day  what  Machiavelli  was  for  the  sixteenth 
century),  that  avows  no  building,  no  consummate 
work  of  art  of  any  kind,  "worth  the  bones  of  a 
Pomeranian  grenadier,"  justifying  its  statement 
on  the  basis  of  a  superficial  humanism.  Never 
was  a  more  malignant  ethic.  A  man  is  valuable 
in  proportion  to  what  he  is  and  does  for  right- 
eous society,  and  for  what  he  makes  of  himself  as 
a  free  and  immortal  soul  responsible  to  God. 
Go  through  the  roaring  mills  of  Crefeld  and 
Essen,  the  futile  pleasure-haunts  of  Homburg  and 
Wiesbaden,  the  bureaux  and  barracks  and  pal- 
aces of  Berlin;  you  will  find — as  similarly  in 
every  country — hundreds  of  thousands  of  peas- 
ants, workmen,  and  aristocrats  whose  contribu- 
tion to  Christian  civilisation  is  nothing,  and  will 
be  nothing  however  long  they  may  live;  who  for- 
get their  souls  and  deny  their  God,  and  of  these 
we  can  say,  it  is  not  the  bones  of  a  Pomeranian 
grenadier  or  even  the  bones  of  a  Prussian  Junker 
that  weigh  more  in  the  scale  than  Reims  or  Lou- 
vain,  it  is  not  a  million  of  these  that  mean  so 
much  for  service  and  the  glory  of  God,  as  one 
such  potent  influence  as  Amiens  or  Reims,  or  the 


A  SANCTUARY  LAID  WASTE  11 

library  and  schools  of  Lou  vain,  or  the  pictures  of 
Memling  and  the  Van  Eycks  in  Bruges  and  Ant- 
werp and  Ghent. 

Those  that  cry  loudest  for  the  sanctity  of  hu- 
man life  and  its  priority  before  art  and  letters, 
most  insistently  hurl  a  hundred  thousand  lives 
against  inevitable  death,  and  spread  black  star- 
vation over  myriads  of  women  and  children,  in 
order  that  their  privilege  of  selling  inferior  and 
unnecessary  products  to  far-away  savages  may  be 
preserved  intact.  Against  this  set  the  cathedrals 
and  universities  and  the  exquisite  art  of  France 
and  Belgium  and  the  Rhine;  consider  what  it 
meant  once,  what  it  means  even  now,  what  for  the 
future  it  is  destined  to  mean  as  never  before. 

For  the  old  passes:  the  old  that  began  with 
Machiavelli  and  is  ending  with  von  Bernhardi. 
It  is  not  alone  Prussia  that  will  be  purged  by  the 
fire  of  an  inevitable  conflict,  nor  Germany,  nor 
all  the  Teuton  lands;  it  is  the  whole  world,  that 
sold  its  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage  and  now, 
in  terror  of  the  price  at  last  to  be  paid,  denounces 
the  infamous  contract  and  fights  to  the  death 
against  the  armies  of  the  Moloch  it  helped  to 
fashion.  And  when  the  field  is  won,  what  hap- 
pens but  the  coming  into  its  own  again  of  the 


12  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

very  power  that  made  Reims  and  Lou  vain,  the 
recovery  of  the  old  and  righteous  and  Christian 
standard  of  values,  the  building  on  the  ruins  of 
five  centuries  of  a  new  civilisation  where  what- 
ever art  that  remains  will  play  its  due  part  as  the 
revealer  of  that  Absolute  Truth  that  brought  it 
into  being,  forgotten  now  for  very  long?  Then 
the  pictures  of  Flanders  and  Umbria  and  Tus- 
cany, the  sculpture  of  France,  the  music  of  Teu- 
ton and  Slav,  the  "minor  arts"  of  all  mediae  val- 
ism,  the  architecture  of  Bourges  and  Amiens  and 
Chartres  will  both  reveal  and  inspire  with  doubled 
power. 

And  in  all  and  through  all,  Reims  in  its  ruin 
will  be  a  more  potent  agency  of  regeneration 
than  the  perfection  of  Chartres  or  the  finality 
of  Bourges. 

I  should  like  to  consider,  though  briefly  and  in 
the  light  of  a  very  real  unity  that  negatived  the 
political  disunity  that  has  always  prevailed,  the 
art  of  these  lands  where  for  a  twelvemonth  mil- 
lions of  men  have  fought  after  a  fashion  never 
known  before,  while  around  them  each  day  saw 
the  irreparable  destruction  of  the  best  that  man 
could  do  for  the  love  of  God,  and  better  than 
he  can  do  now.  In  spite  of  constantly  changing 


A  SANCTUARY  LAID  WASTE  13 

frontiers  and  dynastic  vicissitudes,  the  great  unity 
of  medievalism  blends  the  Rhineland,  Flanders, 
Brabant,  Luxembourg,  Artois,  Champagne,  East- 
ern Normandy,  Eastern  France,  into  a  consistent 
whole,  so  far  as  all  real  things  are  concerned. 
In  spite  of  its  bickerings  and  fightings  and  jeal- 
ousies and  plots  and  counterplots,  Europe  was 
really  more  united,  more  a  working  whole,  during 
the  Middle  Ages  than  ever  it  has  been  since. 
One  religion  and  one  philosophy  did  for  the 
fluctuant  states  what  the  Reformation,  democ- 
racy, and  "enlightenment"  could  only  undo,  and 
in  this  vanishing  art,  which,  after  all,  is  the  truest 
history  man  can  record,  we  find  the  dynamic 
force,  the  creative  power,  of  a  culture  and  a 
civilisation  that  took  little  count  of  artificial 
barriers  between  perfectly  artificial  nations,  but 
included  all  in  the  greatest  and  most  beneficent 
syntheses  Europe  has  ever  known. 

The  art  of  this  land — or  these  lands,  if  you 
like — should  be  so  considered;  not  as  an  inter- 
esting and  even  stimulating  by-product  of  social, 
industrial,  and  political  evolution,  with  only  an 
accidental  relationship  to  them,  and  only  an 
empirical  interest  for  the  men  of  to-day,  but  as 
the  most  perfect  material  expression  of  the  great 


14  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

reality  that  existed  through  and  by  these  agencies 
that  were  in  themselves  nothing;  the  character 
that  emerged  through  the  turmoil  of  human  ac- 
tivity, as  it  shows  itself  in  the  men  and  women  of 
the  time,  and  expresses  itself  in  their  art. 

To  do  this  fully  is  impossible;  every  province 
would  require  a  volume,  every  art  a  series  of 
volumes,  but  at  least  we  can  catalogue  again  the 
more  salient  qualities  of  the  greater  master- 
pieces, and  try  to  co-ordinate  them  into  some  out- 
ward semblance  of  that  essential  unity  they  both 
promised  and  expressed. 


II 

THE   FORGING   OF   MEDIEVALISM 

IT  is  not  a  large  land,  this  Heart  of  Europe; 
three  hundred  and  fifty  miles  perhaps  from  the 
Alps  to  the  sea,  and  not  more  than  two  hundred 
and  fifty  from  the  Seine  at  Paris  to  the  Rhine  at 
Cologne;  half  the  size,  shall  we  say,  of  Texas; 
but  what  Europe  was  for  the  thousand  years 
following  the  fall  of  Rome,  this  little  country — 
or  the  men  that  made  it  great — was  responsible. 
Add  the  rest  of  Normandy,  and  the  spiritual 
energy  of  the  Holy  See,  with  a  varying  and  some- 
times negligible  influence  from  the  Teutonic  lands 
beyond  the  Rhine,  and  you  have  the  mainsprings 
of  medievalism,  even  though  for  its  full  mani- 
festation you  must  take  into  account  the  men  in 
the  far  countries  of  the  Italian  peninsula  and  the 
Iberian,  in  France  and  England,  Bavaria,  Sax- 
ony, Bohemia. 

The  great  empires  of  to-day,  England,  France, 
Germany,  Italy,  two  of  which  have  eaten  steadily 
into  its  territories  until  only  a  tiny  Luxembourg 
remains,  together  with  a  small  new  state  with  a 

15 


16  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

novel  name  made  greater  and  more  lasting  by  the 
events  of  a  year  than  those  of  its  predecessors, 
have  dulled  the  memory  of  an  ancient  unity,  tak- 
ing to  themselves  at  the  same  time  credit,  that  is 
none  of  theirs,  for  men  and  happenings  that  made 
ten  centuries  of  enduring  history;  so  the  glory, 
the  high  achievements  of  the  small  old  states  are 
forgotten.  And  yet,  out  of  these  little  dukedoms 
and  counties  and  free  cities  came  the  men  who 
made  France  and  Germany,  who  determined  the 
genius  of  mediae valism,  imparted  to  it  the  high 
soul  and  the  swift  hand  of  its  peculiar  person- 
ality, and  gave  to  the  world  the  memory  and 
tradition  of  faith  and  heroism,  together  with  so 
much  of  that  inimitable  art  that  was  its  perfect 
showing  forth,  and,  until  yesterday,  a  visible  mon- 
ument of  its  accomplishment. 

National  unity  this  territory  and  these  peoples 
have  never  possessed.  During  the  Roman  domin- 
ion they  formed  the  provinces  of  Germania  and 
Belgica,  in  the  diocese  of  Gaul;  under  the  Mero- 
vings  all  was  comprised  in  the  Prankish  kingdom, 
the  old  line  between  the  Roman  provinces  re- 
maining to  divide  Austrasia  and  Neustria,  as  the 
northern  and  southern  sections  came  to  be  called 
under  the  Carolings.  With  the  disruption  of  the 


THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM  17 

empire  of  Charlemagne,  Austrasia  went  to  the 
kingdom  of  the  East  Franks,  Neustria  to  that 
of  the  West  Franks,  the  former  becoming  (west 
of  the  Rhine)  the  duchies  of  Upper  and  Lower 
Lorraine,  the  latter  (east  of  the  Seine)  Flanders 
and  Champagne.  When  Otto  the  Great  restored 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire  in  A.  D.  962,  the  Lor- 
raines  of  course  formed  a  part.  These  comprised 
all  that  is  now  (or  was,  in  June,  1915)  Germany 
west  of  the  Rhine,  together  with  all  of  Belgium 
except  Flanders,  Luxembourg,  and  a  strip  of 
territory  along  the  northeast  frontier  of  France. 
Westward  to  the  Seine  the  land  was  divided  into 
many  feudal  holdings,  Flanders,  which  then  com- 
prised not  only  northern  Belgium  but  the  present 
French  departments  of  Nord  and  Pas  de  Calais; 
Champagne,  Amiens,  Vermandois,  Laon,  Reims, 
Chalons.  During  the  Middle  Ages  Lower  Lor- 
raine became  the  duchy  of  Brabant  and  the 
county  of  Hainault.  Upper  Lorraine,  Luxem- 
bourg and  Bar,  southern  Flanders,  Artois.  Pic- 
ardy  and  Valois  became  entities,  and  the  great 
bishoprics  of  Cologne,  Treves,  Strasbourg,  Cam- 
bray,  Liege  acquired  more  and  more  land  until 
they  were  principalities  in  themselves. 

During  the  fifteenth  century  the  magnificent 


18  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

efforts  of  the  dukes  of  Burgundy  to  create  for 
themselves  an  independent  state  between  France 
and  the  Empire,  and  reaching  from  the  Rhine  to 
the  Aisne,  from  the  Alps  to  the  sea,  resulted  in 
a  partial  and  temporary  unification  of  the  old 
Belgian  lands,  but  with  the  death  of  Mary  of 
Burgundy  in  1482,  the  whole  territory  became 
more  and  more  closely  knit  into  the  Empire, 
France  losing  even  her  claim  to  suzerainty  over 
Flanders;  all  the  lands  west  of  the  Meuse  and 
over  the  Rhine  as  far  as  the  Ems  became  the 
Netherlands,  comprising  roughly  what  is  now 
Holland  and  Belgium.  The  duchies  of  Luxem- 
bourg, Bar,  and  Lorraine,  with  the  Palatinate, 
shared  all  that  lay  between  the  Meuse  and  the 
Rhine,  save  what  the  great  bishoprics  had  as- 
sumed to  themselves,  while  Burgundy  (except  the 
Franche-Comte)  and  Lorraine  were  definitively 
merged  in  France. 

Then  came  the  Spanish  dominion  over  the 
whole  territory,  barring  the  duchy  of  Julich  along 
the  Rhine;  the  revolt  of  Holland  and  the  sever- 
ing of  the  United  Netherlands  north  of  the  Rhine 
from  the  Spanish  territories;  finally,  in  1715, 
after  160  years  of  ruinous  domination,  Spain  was 
driven  out  and  Austria  succeeded  in  Flanders, 


THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM  19 

Brabant,  and  Luxembourg,  maintaining  herself 
there  until  the  time  of  Napoleon  a  century  later, 
when  for  a  few  years  everything  as  far  as  the 
Rhine,  together  with  the  Netherlands  on  the 
other  side,  was  incorporated  in  France.  With 
the  fading  of  the  splendid  dream  of  a  Napoleonic 
empire,  Holland  and  Belgium,  as  we  know  them 
now,  came  into  existence,  the  lands  of  the  duchy 
of  Julich  went  to  Prussia,  the  Palatinate  to 
Bavaria.  Luxembourg  was  reduced  to  its  existing 
area  and  the  French  frontier  delimited  as  it  is 
now,  except  for  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  which  were 
lost  in  1870. 

Between  the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of 
France  and  the  Empire,  the  Heart  of  Europe  for 
fifteen  centuries  has  been  ground  into  fragments 
of  ever-changing  form,  never  able  to  coalesce  into 
unity,  but  producing  ever  in  spite  of  political 
chaos  and  dynastic  oppression  great  ideals  of 
piety,  righteousness,  liberty;  great  art-manifes- 
tations of  the  vigour  and  nobility  of  race,  great 
figures  to  uphold  and  enforce  the  lofty  principles 
that  have  made  so  much  of  the  brilliant  h'istory 
of  mediaeval  Europe,  and  all  centring  around  the 
lands  of  the  many  tribes  who  from  earliest  times 
were  known  as  the  Belgse. 


20  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

They  enter  well  into  history,  these  Belgae,  in 
the  fifty-seventh  year  before  the  birth  of  Christ, 
Nervii,  Veromandri,  Atrobates,  from  the  valleys 
of  the  Meuse  and  the  Sambre,  as  Caesar  found 
and  declared,  "that  day  against  the  Nervii,"  when 
the  battle  for  the  winning  of  this  new  land 
was  his  by  hardly  more  than  a  chance.  The 
tribes  were  hard  and  free,  and  they  died  in  the 
end  almost  to  a  man,  five  hundred  remaining  out 
of  fifty  thousand  warriors.  But  Caesar  was  mag- 
nanimous, as  always,  and  by  no  means  without 
appreciation  of  his  adversaries,  so  Allies  of  Rome, 
with  full  claim  on  her  protection,  they  became, 
with  the  rank  and  title  of  a  free  people,  as  they 
have  remained  at  heart  ever  since.  In  seven 
years  the  last  of  the  tribes  had  surrendered  and 
Belgium  became  a  flourishing  colony  as  well  as 
the  advance-guard  of  Roman  civilisation  in  its 
progress  against  the  savage  Germans  of  the 
Rhine.  By  the  fall  of  the  Empire  a  great  and 
united  people  had  come  into  being  between  Gaul 
and  Germania,  divided  into  four  great  sections 
with  their  several  capitols  at  Treves,  Reims, 
Mainz,  and  Cologne. 

Meanwhile  the  Franks  had  come  on  the  scene, 
though  their  name  is  rather  a  rallying-cry  than 


THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM  21 

a  mark  of  race,  meaning  only  that  certain  of  the 
tribes  of  Gaul,  with  others  of  the  Belgse,  were 
determined  to  be  free — as  they  became  shortly 
and  as  they  have  generally  remained  ever  since. 
Now  the  Salian  Franks  were  the  dwellers  in 
Flanders  and  Brabant  and  under  their  Duke 
Clodion  had  extended  their  borders  as  far  as 
Soissons.  Clodion's  successor,  Merovaeus,  was 
grandfather  of  Clovis,  the  first  Christian  king  of 
the  north.  The  Merovings,  then,  are  neither 
strictly  of  Gaul  nor  of  Germany,  but  of  the  Heart 
of  Europe  itself,  and  their  blood,  like  that  of 
their  followers,  a  mingling  of  Germanic  and 
Celtic  and  Roman  strains. 

Chalons  saw  them  allied  with  the  Romans  and 
driving  back  the  fierce  tide  of  the  earlier  Huns 
that  threatened  to  beat  out  the  last  flicker  of 
light  in  Europe:  Tolbiac  saw  them  hurl  back  the 
savage  Allemanni,  in  the  year  496,  again  preserv- 
ing the  European  tradition  from  submergence 
under  barbarian  hordes,  nor  was  this  the  last 
time  they  were  to  perform  this  service.  Already 
Clovis  had  married  Clotilde,  niece  of  the  Duke 
of  Burgundy,  so  bringing  another  region  into 
close  contact  with  his  own,  and  now,  after  the 
successful  issue  of  the  battle  of  Tolbiac,  when 


22  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

he  had  first  called  on  the  God  of  Christians,  he 
presented  himself  before  the  Archbishop  of  Reims, 
St.  Remi,  for  baptism,  where  he  heard  the  signif- 
icant words:  "Bow  thy  proud  head,  Sicambrian ! 
destroy  what  thou  hast  worshipped,  worship 
what  thou  hast  destroyed." 

Whatever  the  motive,  and  however  inadequate 
the  performance  of  his  new  obligations  by  Clovis, 
his  baptism  is  one  of  the  crucial  events  in  history, 
marking  the  end  of  paganism  as  a  controlling 
force,  and  with  the  conquest  of  Italy  by  Theo- 
doric  and  the  promulgation  of  the  Holy  Rule  of 
St.  Benedict,  the  beginning  of  the  great  Christian 
era  of  culture  and  civilisation  that  was  to  endure, 
unimpaired,  for  a  thousand  years. 

The  dominion  of  Clovis  comprised  all  that  is 
now  France  south  to  the  Loire  and  Burgundy, 
with  Holland,  Belgium,  Switzerland,  and  Bavaria, 
but  his  capital  was  at  Tournai,  and  he  was  in 
fact  even  more  a  Belgian  than  a  French  sover- 
eign. Under  him  all  the  Franks  were  united  and 
his  power  was  such  that  the  Emperor  at  Constan- 
tinople made  him  patrician,  consul,  and  Augus- 
tus. With  his  death  in  511  began  a  long  era  of 
division  and  reunion,  of  internecine  warfare  and  the 
plotting  of  jealous  women,  two  of  whom,  Frede- 


THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM  23 

gonde  personifying  the  Gallic  influence,  Brunhilde 
the  Germanic,  fostered  a  conflict  that  hardly 
came  to  an  end  before  the  fall  of  the  dynasty. 

Little  by  little  the  Merovings  broke  away  from 
their  racial  Belgic  affiliations,  Soissons  became 
the  capital  rather  than  Tournai,  and  at  last  by  a 
dramatic  turn  of  fate  another  Belgian  race  brought 
the  decrepit  line  to  its  term  and  founded  a  new 
and  a  nobler  house.  Pepin  of  Landen,  in  the 
province  of  Liege,  became  mayor  of  the  palace 
and  the  active  influence  in  royal  affairs,  some- 
where about  the  year  620,  and  it  was  a  son  of  his 
daughter,  Pepin  of  Herstel  (a  town  also  in  the 
province  of  Liege),  who  was  father  of  Charles 
Martel,  who  in  his  turn  was  the  grandfather  of 
Charlemagne. 

As  the  Huns  and  the  Allemanni  had  been  rolled 
back  from  their  savage  incursions  by  the  aid  of 
men  of  Belgic  nationality,  so  now  the  greater 
threat  of  an  onrushing  Monammedanism  was  to  be 
dispelled  by  another  and  a  greater  personality, 
Charles  the  Hammer,  a  soldier  of  consummate 
ability,  the  real  ruler  of  all  the  Franks,  and  the 
victor  at  the  battle  of  Tours  when  final  decision 
was  reached  as  to  whether  Europe  was  for  the 
future  to  be  Moslem  or  Christian. 


24  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Charles  Martel  died  when  only  fifty  years  of 
age,  and  his  son  Pepin  succeeded  him  as  mayor 
of  the  palace.  The  fiction  of  Meroving  kingship 
could  no  longer  be  maintained;  the  stock  was 
hopelessly  degenerate;  the  people  demanded  an 
end,  the  Pope  sanctioned  it,  and  so,  after  a  most 
orderly  fashion  Childeric  III  betook  himself  to  a 
convenient  cloister,  Pepin  was  raised  on  the 
shields  of  the  Gallic  soldiers,  then  decently 
crowned  in  St.  Denis,  and  the  dynasty  of  the  Car- 
olings  began.  For  sixteen  years  he  reigned  as 
kings  had  not  been  wont  to  reign  for  many  cen- 
turies; Saxony,  Brittany,  Languedoc  were  added 
to  the  Frankish  dominions,  Rome  twice  saved 
from  the  Lombard  invaders,  and  the  Papacy  made 
the  faithful  ally  and  defender  of  the  Frankish 
kingdom,  then  the  one  great  power  in  Europe. 

There  were  more  reasons  than  that  of  policy 
for  this  alliance.  Practically  abandoned  by  the 
Roman  Emperors  in  the  east,  Italy  had  been  the 
prey  of  tribe  after  tribe  of  northern  savages,  and 
the  Papacy  was  the  only  centre  of  order  and 
authority.  In  spite  of  this  the  Popes  still  shrank 
from  severing  themselves  wholly  from  the  imperial 
centre,  but  the  iconoclastic  controversy  had  re- 
sulted in  what  was  both  heresy  and  schism  on 


THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM          25 

the  part  of  the  patriarchate  of  Constantinople, 
and  communion  was  no  longer  possible.  More- 
over, all  the  other  northern  tribes  that  had  ac- 
cepted Christianity — Goths,  Vandals,  Lombards- 
had  adopted  the  Arian  heresy  and  were  therefore 
even  more  distasteful  to  Rome  than  unconverted 
heathen.  This  condition  of  things  justified  the 
Papacy  in  its  attitude  of  intolerance,  and  when 
Pepin  came  to  the  throne,  it  was  almost  at  the 
last  gasp,  through  persecution,  spoliation,  and  out- 
rage at  the  hands  of  the  Teutonic  Arians.  The 
Prankish  kingdom  alone  was  Catholic,  and  en- 
thusiastically Catholic,  and  it  is  small  wonder  that 
to  the  Pope  the  rise  of  a  great  and  powerful  and 
Catholic  nation  under  the  dominating  Carolings 
came  as  a  special  mercy  from  heaven — as,  indeed, 
it  was. 

With  the  death  of  Pepin  and  the  accession  of 
his  son  Charles — known  now  for  all  time  as 
Charlemagne — the  curtain  rose  on  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  dramas  of  history.  The  Lombards 
had  again  revolted;  Pope  Hadrian  called  on  the 
Franks  in  despair;  King  Charles  hurled  his 
armies  into  Italy  like  an  avalanche,  captured  and 
deposed  Desiderius,  last  of  the  Lombard  kings, 
proclaimed  himself  King  of  Lombardy,  pressed 


26  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

on  to  Rome,  and  was  welcomed  there  by  the 
Supreme  Pontiff  as  the  saviour  of  Christendom. 

He  would,  however,  accept  no  formal  honours 
save  that  of  patrician,  and  returned  to  the  north 
to  continue  the  work  of  his  father  in  consolidat- 
ing and  extending  the  kingdom.  For  twenty- 
four  years  he  was  engaged  in  innumerable  wars, 
in  eager  efforts  to  restore  education,  political 
order,  ecclesiastical  righteousness,  and  even  some 
small  measure  of  genuine  culture,  with  results 
that  seem  miraculous  in  the  light  of  what  had 
been  before  for  so  many  centuries.  Finally,  in 
the  year  799,  he  went  again  to  Rome,  where  Leo 
III  now  sat  in  the  chair  of  Peter,  and  at  mass  on 
Christmas  Day,  A.  D.  800,  the  Pope  came  sud- 
denly behind  him  as  he  was  kneeling  before  the 
altar  in  St.  Peter's  and,  placing  a  crown  on  his 
head,  cried  in  a  loud  voice:  "Life  and  victory  to 
Charles,  the  great  and  pacific  Emperor  of  the 
Romans,  crowned  by  the  hand  of  God  !"  and  after 
three  centuries  and  more  of  anarchy,  barbarism, 
and  hopeless  degeneration,  the  empire  was  restored 
as  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  in  the  person  of  a 
Frankish  warrior  of  the  lands  of  the  Belgse,  and 
destined  to  endure  for  another  thousand  years. 

Aix-la-Chapelle  is  the  very  centre  of  the  land 


THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM          27 

and  the  people  that  built  up  the  Christian  civili- 
sation of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  it  was  here  that 
Charlemagne  fixed  his  chief  place  of  residence. 
During  his  lifetime  it  was  the  very,  and  the  only, 
centre  of  order  and  of  culture  in  Europe.  A 
great  warrior,  he  was  an  even  greater  adminis- 
trator, while  as  the  restorer  of  learning  and  the 
patron  of  art  and  letters  he  was  perhaps  greatest 
of  all.  When  he  came  to  the  throne  there  lay 
behind  him  nearly  four  centuries  of  absolute 
anarchy  and  barbarism,  from  the  Baltic  to  the 
Mediterranean  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
marches  of  the  Teutonic  savages.  What  he 
built  he  built  from  the  ground  upward,  and 
though  his  was  only  the  "false  dawn"  that  heralds 
the  day,  passing  utterly,  so  far  as  one  could  see, 
within  a  generation  after  his  death,  it  was  the 
saving  of  Europe,  the  preservation  of  the  succes- 
sion, that,  the  second  Dark  Ages  overpassed, 
guaranteed  the  coming  in  of  the  great  era  that 
began  with  the  millennial  year  of  Christianity 
and  lasted  for  five  full  centuries. 

Under  his  direction  a  complete  administrative 
system  was  established  over  the  unwieldy  empire; 
local  governments  were  set  up,  with  a  system  of 
regular  visitations  from  the  central  authority, 


28  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

and  in  this  way  the  foundations  were  laid  fcr 
the  counties  of  Flanders,  Brabant,  Hainault,  into 
which,  together  with  Vermandois,  Valois,  Amiens, 
and  Champagne,  this  territory  of  our  survey  was 
divided  during  the  Middle  Ages. 

In  religion,  education,  and  art  Charlemagne 
went  far  beyond  his  predecessors  for  five  cen- 
turies, so  far  as  the  form  and  re-creation  are  con- 
cerned. Separated  at  last  from  the  church  in 
the  East,  now  definitely  schismatic,  heretical,  and 
Erastian,  the  Papacy  was  in  a  position  to  go  on 
unhindered  in  its  development,  and  Charlemagne 
became  not  only  a  defender  but  a  zealous  and 
enthusiastic  reformer.  Monasticism  was  univer- 
sally strengthened  and  extended,  new  bishoprics 
were  founded,  the  state  of  the  Holy  See  purified, 
while  schools  were  established  in  connection  with 
cathedrals  and  monasteries  throughout  the  Em- 
pire. Charles  had  a  great  passion  for  scholars 
and  artists,  gathering  them  from  Italy,  Spain, 
England,  wherever,  indeed,  they  were  to  be  found, 
and  for  a  time  his  court  was  the  nucleus  of  cul- 
ture in  the  West.  Architecture  was  reborn,  all 
the  ravelled  threads  from  Rome,  Constantinople, 
Ravenna,  Syria  were  gathered  up  and  knit  to- 
gether, and  though  few  authentic  works  from 


THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM  29 

among  the  myriads  of  the  Emperor's  creation  still 
remain,  we  know  from  what  we  have,  and  chiefly 
the  royal  chapel  at  Aix,  that  the  result  was  the 
restoring  once  more  of  a  line  of  continuity  after 
the  vast  vacancy  of  the  Dark  Ages,  and  the  ini- 
tiation of  a  new  vitality  that,  after  the  second 
Dark  Ages,  was  to  serve  as  the  energising  power 
that  brought  Romanesque  art  into  existence  and 
made  possible  the  great  glory  of  Gothic. 

Great  as  he  was,  Charlemagne  had  all  the 
weaknesses  of  his  racial  tradition,  and  by  yield- 
ing to  these  his  era  was  his  alone,  nor  could  it 
outlast  his  personal  influence.  Divided  between 
his  successors,  the  Empire  rapidly  and  naturally 
fell  to  pieces  during  the  lifetime  of  Louis  le  Deb- 
onnaire,  who  for  a  brief  period  had  succeeded  in 
uniting  it  again,  and  during  the  second  Dark 
Ages,  from  850  to  1000  A.  D.,  there  is  no  more  of 
note  to  record  in  this  region  than  in  any  other  part 
of  Europe.  The  era  had  culminated  under  Char- 
lemagne; it  was  now  to  sink  to  its  end,  as  always 
had  happened  before,  as  always,  so  far  as  we  can 
see,  must  continue  to  happen.  Not  until  the  turn 
of  the  tide  at  the  year  1000  could  a  real  recovery 
begin.  In  the  meantime  history  is  little  more 
than  a  series  of  personal  contests,  but  out  of  these 


30  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

certain  beginnings  are  made  that  are  to  have 
issue  in  great  things,  and  amongst  these  are  the 
appearance  of  the  first  Baldwin  of  Flanders  and 
the  establishing  of  the  first  hereditary  title,  and 
therefore  the  oldest  in  Europe.  Baldwin  of  the 
Iron  Arm  successfully  fought  the  Vikings,  driv- 
ing them  west  until  they  were  forced  to  con- 
tent themselves  with  the  land  they  ultimately 
made  immortal  as  Normandy.  His  son  married 
a  daughter  of  Alfred  the  Great,  so  establishing  a 
certain  connection  between  England  and  Flan- 
ders, and  by  fortifying  Bruges,  Ypres,  Ghent,  and 
Courtrai,  he  did  much  toward  fixing  these  cities 
as  centres  of  municipal  life  and  of  that  fierce  in- 
dependence that  marked  them  for  so  many  gen- 
erations. 

With  the  opening  of  the  new  era,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  eleventh  century,  a  new  vitality  shows 
itself  in  the  land.  William  of  Normandy  had 
become  the  son-in-law  of  Baldwin  V,  and  from 
Flanders  many  knights  joined  the  Conqueror  for 
his  invasion  of  England,  one  becoming  first  Earl 
of  Northumberland,  another  first  Earl  of  Chester. 
Under  Baldwin  VI  complete  peace  was  restored 
to  the  distracted  provinces,  while  the  Charter  of 
Grammont  is  a  landmark  in  that  development 


THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM          31 

of  personal  and  civil  liberty  which  is  one  of 
the  great  glories  of  medievalism.  The  Tribunal 
of  Peace,  established  by  the  Bishop  of  Liege,  is 
another  shining  sign  of  the  times,  while  the  de- 
feat of  France  in  its  attacks  on  Flemish  indepen- 
dence assured  a  long  period  of  splendid  develop- 
ment. 

This  was  enhanced  by  the  Crusades,  and  here, 
particularly  in  the  first,  the  Heart  of  Europe 
showed  the  quality  of  the  blood  that  was  its  life. 
Whatever  the  Crusades  may  have  become  after 
long  years,  they  were  in  their  earliest  impulse 
supreme  examples  of  human  faith,  unselfishness, 
devotion,  heroism,  and  piety.  The  redemption  of 
the  Holy  Places  of  Christianity  from  the  infidel 
became  a  passion,  and  the  protagonist,  the  mov- 
ing and  vitalising  spirit,  was  one  Peter  the  Hermit, 
of  the  province  of  Liege,  who,  crucifix  in  hand, 
toiled  through  eastern  France,  the  Netherlands, 
the  Rhineland,  as  well  as  through  his  own  coun- 
try, exhorting  prince  and  peasant  to  take  up 
arms  for  the  freeing  of  the  Holy  Land  from  the 
Saracen. 

His  success  was  almost  miraculous,  for  the 
great  adventure  appealed  to  every  instinct  of 
the  time — piety,  reverence,  chivalry,  romance, 


32  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

the  passion  for  a  new  and  venturesome  and 
knightly  quest — and  in  less  than  two  years  the 
Pope  himself  set  his  seal  of  approbation  on  the 
First  Crusade.  In  Clermont,  in  the  year  1095, 
surrounded  by  four  hundred  bishops  and  mitred 
abbots,  he  cried  to  the  waiting  multitudes  of 
Europe:  "Are  we  called  upon  to  see  in  this  cen- 
tury the  desolation  of  Christianity  and  to  re- 
main at  peace  the  while  our  holy  religion  is 
given  over  into  the  hands  of  the  oppressor  ?  Here 
is  a  lawful  war;  go,  defend  the  House  of  Israel!" 
Almost  with  a  single  voice  Europe  made  answer 
with  the  rallying-cry:  "God  wills  it!"  Every 
scarlet  garment  was  shredded  in  pieces  to  furnish 
crosses  which  were  sewn  to  the  shoulders;  some 
even  branded  themselves  with  the  sign  of  the 
cross  by  means  of  red-hot  irons. 

Within  another  year  an  army  of  100,000  men 
had  been  gathered  together,  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Peter,  himself,  and  it  poured  across  Eu- 
rope as  far  as  Constantinople,  a  disorganised  and 
impotent  mob.  It  met  its  fate  as  soon  as  it 
had  crossed  the  Bosporus  into  Saracen  territory, 
and  only  a  shattered  remnant,  including  the 
originator  of  the  mad  venture,  ever  returned  to 
its  home.  In  the  meantime,  however,  a  greater 


THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM  33 

captain  than  Peter  the  Hermit,  and  of  the  same 
race,  was  gathering  the  enormous  host  that  suc- 
ceeded where  he  had  failed.  Godfrey  of  Bouillon, 
of  the  province  of  Liege,  a  great  scholar  and 
greater  soldier,  gathered  90,000  knights  and 
men-at-arms  in  Flanders  and  Brabant,  and  set 
out  for  Jerusalem  on  the  10th  of  August,  1096. 
A  month  later  the  French  under  command  of  the 
King's  brother,  and  the  Flemings  under  Robert, 
Count  of  Flanders,  followed  in  his  track.  Baldwin 
of  Bourg,  the  Counts  of  Hainault,  Namur,  Grez, 
Audenaarde,  and  Ypres,  with  knights  of  Dixmude, 
Alost,  Bruges,  Ghent,  Brussels,  and  Tournai 
were  amongst  the  leaders,  and  a  concentration 
was  effected  at  Constantinople  when  there  were 
no  less  than  600,000  in  all.  Crossing  into  Asia, 
the  great  host  swept  onward  from  one  victory 
to  another;  the  battle  of  Dorylseum,  fought  on 
the  4th  of  July,  1097,  proved  them  invincible. 
Tarsus  and  Antioch  fell,  and  nothing  lay  between 
them  and  Jerusalem.  The  city  was  besieged  and 
finally  carried  by  assault,  the  attack  beginning 
on  the  14th  of  July,  and  after  a  week  of  incessant 
fighting  on  the  walls  and  through  the  streets, 
Jerusalem  was  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  Cru- 
saders. But  the  host  that  set  out  from  its  many 


34  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

sources  in  Europe  had  vanished  and  only  a  tenth 
of  the  original  number  remained  to  fight  the  re- 
lieving army  from  Egypt  at  Ascalon,  and  to 
organise  the  victory.  Five  hundred  thousand 
men  had  perished  on  the  long  march,  died  of  dis- 
ease, or  fallen  in  battle. 

Godfrey  of  Bouillon  became  the  first  King  of 
Jerusalem,  the  choice  resting  between  him  and 
Robert  of  Flanders.  He  reigned  only  a  year,  and 
was  succeeded  by  his  brother  Baldwin,  who  had 
made  himself  Count  of  Edessa,  and  whose  descen- 
dants continued  on  the  throne  for  several  gen- 
erations. 

In  all  the  succeeding  Crusades,  Flanders  and 
Brabant,  Lorraine,  Champagne,  and  Burgundy 
played  leading  parts,  and  in  the  fifth,  when  the 
arms  of  the  knights  were  turned  from  the  relief 
of  Jerusalem  to  the  conquest  of  the  Byzantine 
Empire,  another  Baldwin  of  Flanders  was  leader, 
and,  after  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  became  the 
first  Latin  Emperor  of  the  East,  his  dynasty  con- 
tinuing on  the  throne  for  fifty  years. 

Amazing  as  were  the  results  of  the  Crusades, 
with  the  conquering  of  the  Saracens  in  the  Holy 
Land,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Eastern  Empire, 
a  Walloon  being  crowned  first  King  of  Jerusalem 


THE  FORGING  OF  MEDIEVALISM  35 

and  a  Fleming  first  Latin  Emperor  of  Byzantium, 
the  local  results  had  no  permanency,  Jerusalem 
falling  again  to  the  Mussulmans  after  a  century 
and  a  half,  Constantinople  reverting  to  the  East- 
ern line  at  about  the  same  time.  In  Europe, 
however,  the  results  had  been  of  profound  import; 
directly,  the  Crusades  had  had  a  vast  influence 
in  determining  the  temper  and  the  course  of 
medievalism,  indirectly  they  had  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  industrial  supremacy  of  the  Belgian 
cities  and  of  the  emancipation  of  the  people  from 
feudalism.  The  Saracen  of  the  twelfth  century 
was  the  antithesis  of  the  Ottoman  Turk  of  to-day, 
and  from  him  the  Crusaders  learned  much  to 
their  advantage,  while  from  the  Eastern  Empire 
came  new  impulses  toward  the  development  of  a 
broader  culture  than  the  West  alone  could  have 
achieved.  So  far  as  the  cities  of  Flanders,  Bra- 
bant, and  Lorraine  were  concerned,  the  absence 
of  their  martial  and  turbulent  knights  was  by  no 
means  an  unmixed  catastrophe.  The  vast  expedi- 
tions demanded  vast  expenditures:  money  came 
generally  into  use  in  place  of  barter;  the  common 
people  who  remained  at  home  developed  their 
industries,  increased  their  wealth,  and  in  the  end 
took  into  their  own  hands  much  of  the  business 


36  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

of  the  government.  The  habit  and  tradition  of 
independence  and  liberty  which  so  grew  up, 
maintained  itself  steadily  against  all  assaults, 
nor  has  it  lapsed  or  waned,  as  the  last  year  has 
gloriously  proved,  and  many  of  the  tall  towers 
that  became  the  recognised  symbol  of  civic  in- 
dependence still  stand  in  testimony,  though  one 
by  one  they  are  falling  before  the  armed  nega- 
tion of  all  they  rose  to  proclaim. 


Ill 

FLANDERS   AND   BRABANT 

IN  a  study  such  as  this  tries  to  be,  it  is,  of  course, 
impossible  to  consider  in  any  degree  the  his- 
tory of  those  portions  of  the  chosen  territory 
that  joined  themselves  to,  or  were  by  force  in- 
corporated in,  the  great  surrounding  states.  The 
Rhineland,  in  spite  of  its  minor  vicissitudes  of 
lordship,  is  and  has  always  been  Germanic,  and 
its  annals  are  part  and  parcel  of  those  of  the 
Teutonic  Holy  Roman  Empire  and  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire  that  succeeded  it.  The  marshes  of 
the  mouth  of  the  Rhine  early  differentiated  them- 
selves both  from  Germany  and  from  the  Gallic 
provinces  farther  south;  Dutch  they  were  and 
Dutch  they  will  ever  remain;  their  history  and 
their  culture  and  their  art  are  by  themselves. 
The  same  is  true  of  Champagne,  Picardy,  Bur- 
gundy, Bar,  and  of  the  lands  between  them  and 
the  Seine.  This  is  France,  and  its  history  is  the 
history  of  France  even  if  its  art  takes  enduring 
colour  from  a  persistent  quality  in  its  people  that 
is  its  own  and  not  simply  that  of  the  Franks  and 

37 


38  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Normans  and  Celts  who  coalesced  around  the 
old  lie  de  France  to  the  building  of  one  of  the 
great  peoples  and  one  of  the  great  states  in  his- 
tory. Each  gave  more  than  it  received  when 
it  became  a  part  of  a  state  that  was  slowly  build- 
ing itself  out  of  assembling  races  and  peoples, 
but  each  was  like  the  daughter  of  a  house;  how- 
ever much  she  might  bring  to  some  alliance,  of 
fortune  or  character  or  power,  she  became  merged 
in  her  new  family,  forsaking  her  name  and  ac- 
cepting that  of  her  chosen  spouse,  together  with 
his  ambitions,  his  interests,  and  his  fortunes. 
We  may  then  consider  the  outlying  lands  of  our 
central  district  as  so  many  fair  daughters  who 
have  allied  themselves  with  suitors  from  neigh- 
bouring territories;  remembering  them  with  affec- 
tion, taking  pride  in  the  dowries  they  have 
carried  with  them,  but  confining  ourselves  to  the 
fortunes  of  the  men  of  the  line  who  have  pre- 
served the  family  name  and  defended  its  honour 
in  the  field.  In  this  sense  Flanders,  Brabant,  and 
Luxembourg  are  the  three  princes  to  whom  was 
given  the  defence  of  the  patrimony  that  has  been 
theirs  from  the  ancient  times  of  the  earliest  be- 
ginnings of  the  house  amongst  the  Gallic  and 
Germanic  tribes  of  the  Rhine  valley,  the  meadows 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  39 

and  uplands  of  the  Scheldt  and  the  Meuse  and  the 
Sambre,  and  in  the  Forest  of  Ardennes. 

As  the  Heart  of  Europe  gradually  became  par- 
celled out  between  the  great  adjoining  empires, 
each  taking  its  colour  more  or  less  from  the  cen- 
tral influences,  while  in  every  instance  contribut- 
ing something  in  its  turn  to  the  sum  that  made 
up  the  varying  greatness  of  both,  the  essential 
qualities  of  the  original  Belgse  seemed  to  con- 
centrate in  the  little  province  of  Flanders,  which, 
during  the  whole  of  the  Middle  Ages,  played  a 
part  in  Europe  strikingly  disproportionate  to  its 
size,  which  was  less  than  half  that  of  the  State 
of  Connecticut,  though  it  contained  over  1,200,- 
000  people  and  counted  cities  like  Ghent  with 
250,000  population,  Ypres  with  200,000,  Bruges 
and  Courtrai  with  100,000  each.  At  the  same 
time  London  could  boast  only  35,000  citizens.  In 
trade,  industry,  wealth,  culture,  and  the  stand- 
ard of  living  Flanders  was  far  in  advance  of  the 
rest  of  northern  Europe,  while  it  was  marked  by  a 
perfect  passion  for  liberty  not  only  for  the  state 
but  for  each  individual  member  thereof. 

Every  portion  of  the  land  we  are  considering 
made  its  own  contribution,  early  or  late,  to  the 
great  sum  of  medievalism,  but  it  would  be  im- 


40  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

possible  to  consider,  even  superficially,  the  gifts 
of  Champagne,  Burgundy,  the  Rhineland.  This 
book  does  not  assume  to  be  a  history,  it  is  only  a 
sequence  of  notes  on  the  lost  or  imperilled  art  of 
the  Heart  of  Europe,  with  just  so  much  of  history 
as  may  serve  to  suggest  what  lay  behind  and  gave 
this  art  its  peculiar  and  unmatched  quality. 

The  great  elements  that  entered  into  this  art 
and  this  civilisation  that  were  pre-eminently  the 
art  and  civilisation  of  Christianity  were  primarily 
two:  northern  blood  and  monastic  fervour.  To 
the  worn-out  vitality  of  the  Mediterranean  races 
came  in  the  fresh  vigour  of  the  North,  Lombard, 
Germanic,  Norman,  Frank,  while  the  monastic 
impulse  imparted  by  St.  Benedict  broke  the  spell 
of  the  Dark  Ages,  made  possible  the  "false 
dawn"  of  Carolingian  civilisation,  and  then, 
through  its  successors,  the  monks  of  Cluny  in 
the  eleventh  century  and  the  Cistercians  in  the 
twelfth,  brought  to  perfection  and  to  complete 
fulness  of  expression  all  the  latent  possibilities  in 
the  clean  new  blood  that  had  been  transfused 
into  the  hardening  veins  of  an  Europe  already 
dangerously  near  dissolution. 

These  elements  of  new  blood  were  chiefly  sup- 
plied by  the  Franks  (both  of  the  East  and  the 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  41 

West),  the  Burgundians,  and  the  Normans,  the  lat- 
ter being  descendants  of  the  Vikings  from  the 
Baltic.  The  Belgae  were  a  subdivision  of  the 
Franks,  and  made  up  of  several  tribes,  Trevii, 
Eburones,  Nervii,  etc.  Generally  speaking,  they 
were  Germanic,  with  a  considerable  Celtic  admix- 
ture. The  Cluniac  and  Cistercian  reforms  came 
from  Burgundy,  which  is  partially  within  the  limits 
of  our  study,  though  later  they  received  great  ac- 
cessions of  strength  from  natives  of  Flanders, 
Brabant,  the  Rhineland,  and  Champagne.  During 
the  eleventh  century  Normandy  was  the  spiritual 
centre,  the  dynamic  force,  of  Europe,  while  in  the 
twelfth  century  the  leadership  was  assumed  by 
the  lie  de  France,  as  wholly  under  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Cistercians  as  Normandy  had  been 
under  that  of  the  Cluniacs.  It  was  during  these 
two  centuries  that  the  great  burst  of  Norman  and 
of  Gothic  architecture  occurred  in  the  lie  de 
France,  in  Normandy,  and  in  Champagne. 

The  contributions  of  the  land  we  now  know 
as  Belgium  were  quite  different;  they  were  at 
the  same  time  a  product  of  mediaeval  culture  and 
one  of  its  causes,  for  they  grew  out  of  the  deep 
and  vital  impulses  beneath  the  whole  epoch, 
while  they  seemed  to  determine  many  of  its 


42  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

manifestations.  The  first  of  these,  the  Crusades, 
has  already  been  referred  to;  the  second,  the 
great  guild  system,  with  its  concomitant,  the  com- 
mune, and  its  result,  a  desire  for  personal,  civic, 
and  national  liberty  that  became  a  passion,  needs 
some  consideration,  since  it  is  from  this  that  came 
so  much  of  the  later  mediaeval  art  of  Flanders  and 
Brabant  that  is  so  priceless  and  so  appallingly 
in  danger  of  destruction. 

Just  how  and  why  the  Flemings  should  have 
become  a  nation  of  weavers,  merchants,  and 
traders  is  hard  to  say,  but  even  in  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, weaving  had  become  so  important  an  in- 
dustry a  charter  was  granted  the  guild  of  weavers 
by  Count  Baldwin.  The  supply  of  wool  came 
overseas  from  England,  where  an  important 
market  for  the  finished  wares  was  also  found, 
and  as  a  result  a  close  community  of  interests 
sprang  up  between  Flanders  and  East  Anglia. 
Without  natural  protection  of  any  kind,  the  land 
lying  open  to  any  invasion,  walled  cities  became 
imperative,  as  well  as  unions  for  self-defence, 
and  so  came  the  great  and  rich  and  defiant  cities 
such  as  Ghent  and  Bruges,  Ypres  and  Courtrai. 
When  the  nobles  and  knights  flocked  off  on  cru- 
sade, the  citizens  remained  at  home,  and  they 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  43 

were  not  slow  to  seize  the  opportunity  offered 
them  of  acquiring,  almost  without  protest,  the 
civil  power  that,  elsewhere,  under  a  dominant  and 
universal  feudalism,  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
barons. 

By  this  time  the  development  of  the  guilds  had 
reached  enormous  proportions,  and  the  members 
were  so  numerous,  so  highly  organised,  and  so 
defiant  of  molestation  they  were  almost  irre- 
sistible. In  Ghent,  for  example,  there  were  more 
than  50,000  enrolled  craftsmen  and  artificers  in 
the  thirteenth  century;  in  Bruges  there  were  the 
four  great  trading  guilds  of  wool  merchants,  linen 
merchants,  mercers,  and  brewers,  and  in  addition 
no  less  than  fifty -two  guilds  of  craftsmen.  These 
guilds  were  not  only  for  the  protection  of  the  in- 
terests of  their  members,  they  equally  aimed  at 
maintaining  the  highest  possible  standard  in  their 
products  (so  differentiating  themselves  sharply 
from  the  contemporary  trade-union),  while  they 
demanded  and  received  civic  rights  and  privileges 
unheard  of  before  and  elsewhere.  Finally  they 
were  military  as  well  as  civil  in  their  nature,  all 
the  members  being  trained  to  arms  and  under 
competent  military  direction.  The  actual  power 
they  could  exert  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  at  one 


44  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

time  the  weavers  in  Ghent  put  an  efficient  army 
of  40,000  men  into  the  field.  Every  man  was 
bound  to  answer  the  alarm-bell  of  his  own  guild 
on  the  instant,  and  so  came  the  great  bell-towers 
that  stood  not  only  as  the  source  of  warning  and 
the  rallying-place,  but  also  as  visible  evidences  of 
the  liberty  of  the  men  who  obeyed  the  summons 
from  their  great  bourdons. 

Never  before  or  since  has  skilled  labour  oc- 
cupied a  more  advantageous  position  than  in 
Flanders  in  the  thirteenth  century;  wages  were 
high,  life  liberal  and  self-respecting,  comforts 
and  even  luxuries  common  to  all,  while  the  high 
standard  of  workmanship  made  labour  dignified 
and  enjoyable,  and  close  union  of  interests  guaran- 
teed the  protection  of  all  against  the  aggressions 
of  the  nobles  and  the  feudal  system. 

Offsetting  the  gains  were  corresponding  losses. 
Successful  industry,  through  group  action,  to- 
gether with  the  consequent  development  of  the 
town  unit,  resulted  in  a  general  loss  of  any  na- 
tional or  racial  spirit.  The  interests  of  each  man 
were  those  of  his  guild  or  town,  and  during  the 
entire  Middle  Ages  there  was  the  most  kaleido- 
scopic grouping  and  regrouping  of  towns  and 
provinces,  now  against  the  Empire,  now  against 


ST.    BAVON'S   TOWER,    GHENT 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  45 

France,  Burgundy,  England,  now  against  each 
other  or  some  count  or  duke  working  in  his  turn 
for  dynastic  or  political  dominance.  Another 
cause  of  dissension  was  the  complicated  absurdity 
of  feudal  tenure,  whereby  the  French-speaking 
people  of  Brabant  and  Lorraine  were  united  to 
the  Empire,  the  Flemings  to  France,  while,  as 
happened  in  the  case  of  the  Count  of  Flanders, 
a  prince  might  be  one  of  the  Twelve  Peers  of 
France,  and  a  vassal  of  the  King,  and  yet  be  vas- 
sal to  the  Emperor  for  portions  of  his  land.  The 
process  of  progressive  unification  which  was  tak- 
ing place  elsewhere  was  here  reversed,  and  by 
the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  Brabant  had  been 
broken  up  into  five  counties,  while  as  far  as  the 
Seine  were  small  and  involved  feudal  domains  and 
bishoprics,  such  as  Hainault,  Vermandois,  Pon- 
thievre,  Amiens,  Reims,  Coucy,  Beauvais. 

Flanders  retained  a  certain  unstable  unity, 
and  against  this  Philip  Augustus  of  France  set 
himself  in  his  comprehensive  policy  of  unifica- 
tion; after  his  first  invasion  Ferrand  of  Portugal, 
who  had  married  the  heiress  of  the  last  Baldwin 
of  Flanders  and  Hainault,  took  the  lead  in  form- 
ing an  alliance  with  England  and  the  Empire  for 
the  crushing  of  France  and  the  division  of  the 


46  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

kingdom.  Bouvines  saw  the  ending  of  the  am- 
bitious plot,  and  as  well  the  beginnings  of  modern 
France.  Later  came  the  League  of  Grammont 
and  the  second  attempt  to  destroy  France,  which 
failed  also;  but  at  the  battle  of  Courtrai  by  the 
Lys,  the  Flemish  army  of  25,000  utterly  de- 
feated a  French  force  of  double  the  number,  with 
the  loss  of  the  proudest  blood  in  France.  A  thou- 
sand knights  fell,  with  20,000  squires  and  men-at- 
arms,  and  in  the  Church  of  Our  Lady  of  Courtrai, 
700  gold  spurs,  from  the  heels  of  dead  knights, 
were  hung  to  the  glory  of  the  great  victory. 

So  through  the  thirteenth  century  incessant 
fighting  went  on  both  in  Flanders  and  Brabant, 
and  in  the  great  bishopric  of  Liege,  the  net  result 
being  the  complete  downfall  of  feudalism  in  ad- 
vance of  the  rest  of  Europe  and  the  solidifying 
of  the  popular  passion  for  personal  liberty  and 
self-government . 

The  fourteenth  century  was  the  golden  age  of 
the  communes  and  as  well  of  renewed  resistance 
to  the  continuous  encroachments  of  France,  when 
the  brief  period  of  the  commercial  alliance  with 
England  under  Edward  III  came  to  an  end. 
This  English  alliance,  prompted  by  both  com- 
mercial and  political  considerations,  had  been 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  47 

the  dream  of  the  first  Van  Artevelde,  Jacques  by 
name,  the  leader  of  the  weavers  of  Ghent.  For 
nine  years  he  had  laboured  for  the  interests  of  his 
fellow  guildsmen  and  Ghentois,  supporting  King 
Edward  III  in  his  claims  on  the  crown  of  France, 
plotting  and  planning  to  preserve  the  indepen- 
dence of  Flanders.  He  fell  a  victim,  however,  to 
the  spirit  of  irresponsible  faction  which  already 
had  been  the  inevitable  outcome  of  the  demo- 
cratic, socialistic,  and  selfishly  greedy  elements 
inherent  in  an  unhampered  guild  system,  and 
was  murdered  by  his  own  followers  in  the  streets 
of  Ghent. 

In  the  meantime  Louis  de  Male,  had  become 
Count  of  Flanders,  in  succession  to  his  father, 
Louis  de  Nevers,  while  Wenceslas  of  Luxembourg, 
son  of  the  King  of  Bohemia,  who  had  married 
one  of  the  daughters  of  John  III,  became  Duke 
of  Brabant.  Here,  as  in  Flanders,  the  various 
guilds  had  gained  a  control  that  was  periodically 
contested  by  the  nobles,  particularly  in  Louvain, 
where  the  disorders  continued  for  twenty  years. 
In  the  end  the  cities  were  defeated,  for  they  had 
used  their  power  ill,  determining  their  action  by 
superhuman  cruelty  and  greed,  oppressing  the 
weaker  communes  whenever  they  threatened  their 


48  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

trade,  fighting  amongst  themselves,  splitting  up 
into  factions,  and  vacillating  between  sudden 
enthusiasms  and  corresponding  treachery.  Al- 
ready the  tendency  was  setting  in  away  from  the 
mediaeval  looseness,  mobility,  and  even  democ- 
racy in  government,  and  toward  that  centralisa- 
tion coupled  with  autocracy  which  was  to  be  the 
contribution  of  the  Renaissance  to  the  science  of 
government  and  was  to  end  in  the  absolutism  of 
Henry  VIII,  Philip  of  Spain,  and  Louis  XIV. 
Even  if  the  guilds  had  shown  a  high  standard  of 
morals  and  of  statesmanship,  if  the  communes  had 
been  truly  patriotic  and  national  in  their  aims  and 
methods,  they  could  hardly  have  stood  against 
a  tendency  already  clearly  defined  and  marking 
the  new  era,  now  coming  to  birth,  as  their  high 
beginnings  had  marked  that  already  drawing  to 
its  close. 

Louis  made  war  against  Brabant,  lost,  but  re- 
gained Malines,  which  he  had  sold  to  his  father- 
in-law  of  Brabant,  and  then  turned  his  attention 
to  a  final  suppression  of  Ghent,  the  last  stronghold 
of  the  declining  democracy  of  Flanders.  It  was 
in  1279  that  Bruges  asked  for  a  canal  to  the  Lys 
to  make  amends  for  the  silting  up  of  her  only 
outlet  to  the  sea.  Ghent  protested,  fearing  loss 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  49 

of  her  own  trade,  and  took  up  arms  when  Louis 
granted  the  canal.  The  "White  Hoods"  defeated 
the  forces  sent  against  them,  whereupon  the  fickle 
burgers  of  Bruges  and  Ypres  went  over  to  their 
side  and  long,  hard  fighting  followed,  until  Louis 
found  himself  besieged  in  Audenaarde  by  some 
60,000  "White  Hoods"  and  was  only  saved  by  the 
intervention  of  his  son-in-law  Charles  of  Burgundy. 
Retreating  to  France,  with  headquarters  at  Lille, 
he  reorganised  his  forces,  renewed  the  attack,  cap- 
tured Ypres,  and,  one  after  the  other,  all  the  cities 
of  Flanders  except  Ghent,  to  which  he  laid  siege. 
At  this  last  crisis  in  its  fortunes  Ghent  turned  to 
Philip,  son  of  Jacques  van  Artevelde,  who  took 
command,  organised  a  force  of  5,000  men,  led  them 
against  Count  Louis'  army  of  40,000,  attacked 
near  Bruges,  and  defeated  it  utterly,  Louis  escap- 
ing only  in  the  clothes  of  his  servant.  Bruges  was 
occupied  and  its  walls  destroyed,  Ypres  and  Cour- 
trai  joined  in  with  Ghent,  and  Bruges  itself  turned 
against  its  count. 

The  issue  was  now  fairly  joined  between  com- 
mons and  knights;  Louis  de  Male  made  his  cause 
that  of  order  and  the  nobility  against  anarchy 
and  the  proletariat,  the  King  of  France  and  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy  joined  him,  and  under  Oliver, 


50  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

constable  of  France,  80,000  men,  amongst  whom 
no  communal  levies  were  admitted,  marched  on 
Ghent  and  its  allies.  Against  this  force  Philip 
van  Artevelde  mustered  40,000  men  who  advanced 
to  the  attack  with  a  mad  confidence  born  of  their 
recent  victory  over  Louis.  In  a  thick  fog  they 
hurled  themselves  in  a  solid  body  on  the  centre 
of  the  enemy,  broke  it,  saw  victory  before  them, 
and  then,  the  fog  lifting,  found  themselves  flanked 
on  both  sides  by  the  constable's  horse,  and  aban- 
doned themselves  to  a  panic  that  ended  in  the 
slaughter  of  more  than  half  their  number,  in- 
cluding Van  Artevelde  himself,  whose  brief  day 
of  success  and  glory  had  lasted  exactly  eleven 
months. 

The  French  sacked  Courtrai  arid  went  home, 
whereupon  Ghent  again  took  heart  of  hope,  and, 
aided  by  Henry  Spencer,  Bishop  of  Norwich, 
with  3,000  men,  defied  Louis  and  laid  siege  to 
Ypres,  which  was  relieved  by  the  returning 
French,  and  a  truce  was  finally  signed  at  Calais. 

It  was  the  end  of  the  democratic  communes, 
not  only  in  Flanders  but  in  Brabant,  where  Duke 
Wenceslas  at  the  same  time  had  defeated  the 
communes  at  Louvain,  and  as  well  in  France, 
where  the  growing  spirit  of  communal  inde- 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  51 

pendence  was  wiped  out  by  a  king  who  had  found 
in  Flanders  the  proof  that  this  cannot  co-exist 
with  a  strong  and  centralised  monarchy. 

Already  industrial  decline  had  set  in;  the 
country  had  been  harried  by  French  armies  and 
by  civil  wars,  many  had  gone  overseas  to  Eng- 
land to  establish  there  a  rival  industry  that  slowly 
sapped  the  prosperity  of  Flanders  and  Brabant. 
The  Black  Death  had  decimated  the  remaining 
population,  and  Bruges,  Courtrai,  Ypres,  indeed 
nearly  all  the  great  towns  but  Ghent,  slowly 
lost  their  population  until  hardly  a  tenth  was 
left.  Still  a  large  degree  of  prosperity  remained, 
and  wealth  was  as  much  desired  and  as  success- 
fully attained  as  before,  only  within  narrower 
lines  and  by  a  far  smaller  number  of  people. 

When  Louis  de  Male  died,  shortly  after  the 
victory  of  his  French  allies  over  the  communes, 
his  son-in-law,  Philip  the  Bold,  Duke  of  Bur- 
gundy, became  Count  of  Flanders,  and  the  fif- 
teenth century  was  dominated  by  Burgundian 
efforts  to  build  up  a  strong  central  kingdom  when 
it  became  evident  that  it  could  not  control  the 
destinies  of  France.  Flanders,  Brabant,  and  Na- 
mur  were  all  incorporated  in  Burgundy,  and  later 
Holland  and  Hainault,  so  that  it  seemed  for  a 


52  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

time  that  a  great  central  state  might  arise  between 
the  Empire  and  the  kingdom  of  France. 

Philip's  first  efforts  were  to  wean  Flanders 
from  its  friendship  with  England  in  order  that 
he  might  use  the  country  for  the  invasion  he  had 
planned  to  bring  about.  He  died  in  1404  before 
he  could  carry  out  his  schemes  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  his  son,  John  the  Fearless,  whose  aim 
was  the  French  crown,  in  opposition  to  the  Duke 
of  Orleans  who  had  become  supreme  in  Paris. 
He  marched  on  the  capital,  which  opened  its 
gates  to  him,  while  Orleans  took  refuge  in  the 
south  but  returned  and  too  confidingly  patched 
up  some  kind  of  a  peace  with  Burgundy,  who 
had  him  assassinated  in  the  streets  of  Paris  in 
the  following  year.  Out  of  his  murder  grew  the 
league  of  the  partisans  of  Orleans,  the  "Armag- 
nacs,"  who  took  their  name  from  Count  d'Ar- 
magnac,  father-in-law  of  one  of  the  daughters 
of  the  murdered  duke,  and  the  warfare  between 
them  and  the  house  of  Burgundy. 

In  the  meantime  Henry  V  had  laid  claim  to 
the  French  throne,  had  invaded  France,  and  fought 
the  battle  of  Agincourt.  Thus  far  John  the 
Fearless  had  kept  out  of  the  fight,  but  now  he 
allied  himself  with  the  Dauphin  and  went  to 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  53 

meet  him  at  Montereau  to  seal  his  allegiance. 
Here  he  was  in  turn  slain  by  the  Armagnacs  in 
revenge  for  his  own  murder  of  the  Duke  of  Or- 
leans, and  his  son,  Philip  the  Good,  at  once 
threw  himself  into  the  arms  of  England,  against 
France,  and  it  was  he  who  handed  over  the  B. 
Jeanne  d'Arc  to  the  Bishop  of  Beauvais,  after  her 
capture  at  Compiegne  in  1430,  as  a  witch  and 
sorceress. 

Philip  was  more  devoted  to  his  new  possessions 
than  to  his  native  Burgundy,  and  under  him 
Bruges  and  Ghent  took  precedence  of  his  old 
capital  of  Dijon.  Philip  also  was  the  founder 
of  the  Order  of  the  Golden  Fleece  on  the  oc- 
casion of  one  of  his  numerous  marriages,  this 
time  in  Bruges  and  to  the  Countess  of  Nevers. 
The  marriage  was  a  great  event  in  many  ways, 
for  to  it  came  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Bedford, 
he  being  then  Regent  of  France  for  the  English 
king  and  realising  that  the  triumphant  career  of 
Jeanne  d'Arc  was  having  results  that  urged  him 
to  make  the  most  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  the 
only  friend  left  to  his  royal  master.  The  Golden 
Fleece,  the  oldest  order  on  the  Continent,  was  in- 
stituted in  particular  honour  of  Flanders,  and 
especially  the  city  of  Bruges,  the  world  centre  of 


54  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

the  wool  trade.  There  were  to  be  but  twenty- 
four  knights,  under  the  leadership  of  the  duke, 
and  they  were  granted  extraordinary  privileges, 
amongst  them  immunity  from  all  other  states, 
princes  and  laws,  being  subject  only  to  their 
sovereign  master,  though  they  remained  citizens 
of  their  respective  states,  whatever  those  may 
have  been.  Philip  II  of  Spain  did  away  with 
this  intolerable  anomaly,  and  in  1725  the  order 
was  divided  between  Spain  and  Austria,  so  losing 
wholly  its  original  and  most  distinctive  quality 
as  a  signal  honour  especially  pertaining  to  Flan- 
ders. 

By  1435  Philip,  whose  affection  for  England 
had  been  at  the  best  lukewarm,  could  bear  no 
longer  the  appalling  misery  of  France  and  the 
excesses  of  the  English  armies.  All  north  of  the 
Loire  had  become  a  wilderness  and  even  in  the 
later  Middle  Ages  pity  was  a  feeling  still  easily 
aroused.  By  the  treaty  of  Arras  Burgundy 
finally  separated  itself  from  the  English  alliance 
and  joined  Charles  VII,  the  immediate  result 
being  a  letting-up  of  the  war  in  France  and  a 
transferring  of  hostilities  to  Flanders.  The  duke 
led  an  enthusiastic  force  of  Flemings  against 
Calais,  failed  to  capture  it,  and  then  discovered 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  55 

the  erratic  nature  of  his  Flemish  subjects,  for 
they  forthwith  turned  against  him  as  suddenly 
as  they  had  deserted  the  English  alliance,  and 
Philip  proceeded  forthwith  to  break  their  spirit, 
or  rather  the  frantic  independence  of  their  cities. 
He  succeeded,  and  yet  Flanders  prospered  in 
spite  of  the  sporadic  internecine  warfare.  Pros- 
perity somehow  came  back  and  wealth  increased, 
while  Memling,  the  Van  Eycks  and  their  great 
line  of  successors,  together  with  other  masters  of 
art  in  allied  fields,  gave  a  glory  to  the  time  that 
will  endure  for  ever.  Then  followed  years  of  strife 
and  turbulence,  of  shifting  alliances  and  of  sym- 
pathies as  ready  to  turn  as  to  be  aroused.  Philip 
died,  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  Charles  the  Bold, 
and  the  disorders  broke  out  afresh  so  success- 
fully that  at  first  he  was  forced  to  give  back  all 
the  communal  privileges  his  father  had  taken 
away.  In  addition  to  his  domestic  troubles  he 
found  himself  the  object  of  the  serpentine  plots 
of  Louis  XI  now  King  of  France.  Charles  was 
equal  to  the  occasion,  however;  he  married  Mar- 
garet of  York,  sister  to  the  English  King,  so  ac- 
quiring a  new  ally;  marched  against  Liege,  the 
centre  of  the  local  disaffection,  captured  it  trium- 
phantly, then  turned  on  the  crafty  and  unscrupu- 


56  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

lous  Louis  and  proceeded  to  beat  him  at  his  own 
game.  In  the  midst  of  this  enviable  adventure, 
Liege  revolted  once  more,  and  this  time  Charles, 
dragging  Louis  at  his  heels,  captured  the  city 
again,  now  showing  none  of  the  mercy  he  had  be- 
fore exhibited.  The  whole  city  was  sacked,  only 
the  churches  and  monasteries  being  spared,  and 
the  ruins  were  given  to  the  flames.  In  spite  of 
the  exemption  accorded  religious  property,  the 
destruction  of  the  great  city  was  too  manifestly 
a  violation  of  the  common  decencies  of  Christian 
conduct  to  be  neutrally  endured  by  the  Pope,  who 
at  that  time  (it  was  almost  five  centuries  ago) 
did  not  fear  to  take  a  strong  stand  for  righteous- 
ness when  occasion  offered,  and  Charles  had  to 
make  his  peace  with  the  head  of  the  Church  as 
best  he  could. 

The  policy  of  "frightfulness"  had  its  advan- 
tages to  its  perpetrator,  however,  and  the  other 
rebellious  cities  surrendered  at  discretion,  losing 
their  treasured  liberties  and  becoming  simply 
communities  in  a  united  and  centralised  state. 
In  the  end  Charles  lost,  for  Louis  XI  was  a  schemer 
of  such  profound  duplicity  that  only  the  devil 
himself  could  have  matched  him  in  the  long  run, 
and  on  even  terms.  The  duke  met  failure  at 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  57 

every  turn:  in  his  effort  to  co-ordinate  his  unruly 
provinces  into  a  working  organism,  in  his  ambi- 
tion to  become  King  of  Burgundy  instead  of 
duke,  in  his  last  war  against  the  Swiss  when  he 
was  utterly  defeated  and  slain.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  his  daughter,  the  famous  Mary  of 
Burgundy,  who  also  became  a  victim  of  the  royal 
spider  of  France,  but  countered  on  him  by  sud- 
denly marrying  Maximilian,  son  of  the  Emperor, 
and  so  beginning  that  train  of  events  that  sev- 
ered Burgundy  from  its  French  associations  and 
brought  its  several  parts  into  a  relationship  with 
Germany  that  continued  for  nearly  three  centuries. 

Young,  beautiful,  clever,  and  immensely  pop- 
ular, Mary  of  Burgundy  seemed  destined  to  ac- 
complish what  her  father  had  failed  to  bring 
about,  the  unification  and  restoration  of  a  great 
Burgundian  state,  but  after  only  five  years  of 
rule  she  was  killed  by  a  fall  from  her  horse  while 
hunting,  and  Philip,  her  infant  son,  became  duke 
in  name,  and  the  old  political  troubles  rose  to  a 
climax  that  in  the  end  brought  in  the  Spanish 
dominion  and  the  ruin  that  followed  in  its  wake. 

The  cities  of  Flanders  and  Brabant  turned 
again  to  France,  in  a  frantic  effort  to  regain  their 
lost  liberties,  while  Maximilian,  who  had  been 


58  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

crowned  King  of  Rome,  and  was  of  course  next 
in  succession  to  the  Empire,  fought  again  and 
again  to  restore  his  supremacy,  and  regain  his 
infant  son,  the  future  Philip  the  Fair,  who  had 
been  sent  to  France  to  be  educated  and  to  get 
him  out  of  the  hands  of  his  father.  In  the  end 
he  defeated  the  ring-leading  cities,  Ghent,  Bruges, 
and  Ypres,  and  was  acknowledged  regent.  In 
1493  Frederick  died  and  Maximilian  succeeded 
him  as  Emperor,  proclaiming  Philip  as  Count  of 
Flanders,  marrying  him  out  of  hand  to  Joanna, 
Infanta  of  Castile,  and  betrothing  his  sister  to 
Don  John,  heir  to  the  crown  of  Spain.  The  sud- 
den rise  of  a  great  new  power  in  the  Iberian 
Peninsula  had  overturned  all  the  old  alignments; 
the  driving  of  the  Moors  from  Spain  and  the 
union  of  Aragon  and  Castile  in  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  had  revealed  a  new  force  that  might  be 
used  against  France,  and  more  dependable  than 
England,  and  the  new  Emperor  was  not  slow  to 
recognise  his  opportunity.  His  sister  never  mar- 
ried Don  John,  who  died  before  the  projected 
wedding,  and  was  followed  by  his  sister,  the 
Queen  of  Portugal,  so  suddenly  the  Count  of 
Flanders  and  his  countess  became  heirs  to  the 
throne  of  Spain.  They  gained  little  advantage 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  59 

from  this,  although  after  the  death  of  Queen 
Isabella  in  1505  they  went  to  Spain,  and  were 
proclaimed  as  king  and  queen,  but  their  glory 
was  short-lived,  for  in  the  following  year  Philip 
met  a  sudden  and  untimely  end,  his  queen  went 
mad  through  grief,  and  the  Emperor  became  the 
dominating  influence  in  Spain  as  well  as  in  Flan- 
ders through  the  guardianship  of  his  five-year-old 
grandson,  the  future  Charles  V. 

During  his  minority  his  aunt,  Margaret  of 
Austria,  had  acted  as  regent,  and  with  a  wisdom 
and  a  benevolence  her  male  predecessors  had 
never  shown,  so  that  when  in  1515  Charles  be- 
came actual  ruler  of  Flanders,  he  found  himself 
in  possession  of  a  calm  and  contented  commu- 
nity. Carefully  educated  by  his  admirable  aunt, 
Charles,  the  heir  to  seventeen  kingdoms,  could 
speak  the  language  of  each,  and  he  had,  moreover, 
the  enormous  advantage  of  being  tutored  by  the 
great  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam.  Hardly  had  he  be- 
come King  of  Spain  through  the  death  of  Fer- 
dinand, when  his  grandfather  died,  and  he  became 
Emperor  as  well.  Practically  all  Europe,  and 
America  also,  were  his,  and  after  his  war  with 
France  which  ended  at  Pavia  with  the  capture 
of  Francis  I  (when  all  was  "lost  save  honour"), 


60  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

he  was  the  temporal  Lord  of  the  World,  except 
England  alone,  while  the  spiritual  power  of  the 
Papacy  was  his  only  rival  on  the  Continent,  and 
the  Pope  himself  was  his  old  tutor,  Adrian,  Arch- 
bishop of  Toledo. 

Charles  was  as  able  as  he  was  universal  in  his 
sovereignty;  he  organised  his  vast  empire  on 
practical  lines  under  well-chosen  regents,  none 
of  whom  was  more  excellent  than  Margaret  of 
Austria,  under  whom  the  country  prospered  ex- 
ceedingly. She  was  as  shrewd  and  far-seeing  as 
she  was  admirable  in  character;  a  poet  in  her 
own  right,  she  fostered  art,  letters,  and  general 
culture,  and  her  death  in  1530  was  a  loss  to  Flan- 
ders and  also  to  the  Emperor,  who  immediately 
appointed  his  sister  Mary  regent  in  her  place,  a 
lady  of  less  distinguished  abilities,  but  a  good  and 
faithful  servant  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

Charles  V  estimated  Luther,  and  the  Reforma- 
tion generally,  at  something  of  their  true  value; 
he  saw  the  menace  as  well  as  the  merit  of  the  bud- 
ding revolution  and  opposed  it  firmly  because  of 
its  dangerous  elements,  which  were  already  re- 
vealing themselves.  The  great  era  of  the  Middle 
Ages  had  come  to  an  end,  carrying  with  it  in  its 
fall  many  of  those  elements  of  righteousness  in 


FLANDERS  AND  BRABANT  61 

thought  and  action  for  which  Charles  cared  al- 
most passionately.  He  was  of  the  older  age 
rather  than  of  the  new,  and  in  the  end  the  con- 
viction that  he  had  failed  to  stem  the  tide,  coupled 
with  the  progressive  ruin  of  the  old  religion,  the 
old  philosophy,  the  old  order  of  life,  led  him  to 
abdicate  what  was  almost  the  throne  of  the 
world  and  seek  refuge  in  a  monastery,  where  he 
devoted  the  brief  remainder  of  his  life  to  prayer, 
meditation,  and  the  making  of  watches. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  he  had  done  Eu- 
rope inestimable  services,  amongst  them  the  beat- 
ing back  of  the  Moslem  host,  the  recovery  to 
Christianity  of  Hungary,  the  conquest  of  Tunis, 
and  the  general  blocking  of  the  double  lines  of 
Mohammedan  advance.  He  was  successful  in 
his  new  crusade  against  the  Eastern  infidels,  but 
he  could  not  arrest  the  progress  of  heresy  and 
anarchy  in  the  West,  and  he  finally  abandoned 
the  fight  in  despair,  turning  over  to  others  a 
royalty  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  To  his  son  Philip 
were  given  Spain,  the  American  possessions,  and 
the  "Low  Countries,"  which  then  comprised  all 
Belgium,  Holland,  and  Luxembourg  as  well  as  Ar- 
tois  and  Cambrai.  So  began  the  Spanish  do- 
minion over  the  very  centre  of  the  Heart  of  Eu- 


62  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

rope.  It  was  the  richest  state  in  the  world;  when 
Philip  II  became  sovereign  there  were  seventeen 
provinces  with  208  great  walled  towns,  150  bor- 
oughs and  more  than  6,000  villages.  The  prod- 
ucts were  infinitely  varied  and  were  famous 
throughout  the  world:  woollen  cloth,  linen,  silk, 
velvet,  damask,  embroideries,  gloves,  metal-work 
of  every  kind.  Antwerp  was  in  the  lead  in  com- 
merce, and  it  is  said  that  the  city  had  a  popula- 
tion of  250,000,  with  1,000  resident  foreign  mer- 
chants; 500  ships  entered  the  port  daily,  and  300 
wagons  from  across  the  frontiers  of  France  and 
the  Empire,  while  more  business  was  transacted 
there  in  a  week  than  in  two  years  in  Venice,  her 
great  commercial  rival  in  the  South.  Such  were 
the  lands  that  came  to  Philip  of  Spain:  the 
richest  prize  that  Europe  could  afford. 


IV 

A   SPANISH   NETHERLANDS 

WHEN  Philip  II  came  to  the  throne  there 
was  a  new  king  in  France,  Henry  II,  who 
forthwith  broke  the  peace  Charles  V  had  en- 
gineered, and  proceeded  to  invade  both  Italy 
and  Flanders.  He  was  promptly  beaten,  in  the 
north  by  Egmont  at  St.  Quentin,  and  after  so 
disastrous  a  fashion  that  hardly  any  one  but 
Nevers  and  Conde  escaped.  It  was  in  gratitude 
for  the  brilliant  victory  of  his  Belgian  troops  that 
Philip  built  the  palace  of  the  Escorial.  Trying 
again  the  next  year,  Henry  did  indeed,  through 
the  Duke  de  Guise  (whose  luck  was  better  than 
that  which  followed  him  when  he  met  Alva  the 
year  before  in  Italy),  regain  Calais,  during  the 
absence  of  the  English  garrison,  who  were  home 
on  a  holiday;  but  again  Egmont  came  into  the 
breech,  crushed  the  French  at  Gravelines,  and 
so  forced  the  treaty  of  Cateau-Cambresis,  which 
obliged  France,  amongst  other  penalties,  to  give 
up  to  Philip  more  than  two  hundred  walled 

63 


64  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

towns,  though  she  was  allowed  to  retain  Calais, 
Mary  of  England  now  being  dead. 

Flemish  soldiers,  now  forming  the  best  trained 
and  most  effective  army  in  Europe,  had  won  the 
war  for  Philip,  but  out  of  the  victory  came  in 
the  end  the  ruin  of  their  country,  for  before  leav- 
ing for  Spain,  which  he  loved,  he  demanded  of 
the  Netherlands,  which  he  disliked,  three  million 
florins  toward  the  expense  of  the  war.  This  was 
granted,  but  coupled  with  a  request  that  the 
Spanish  garrison  be  withdrawn.  It  happened 
that  this  demand  was  made  at  the  instigation  of 
William,  Prince  of  Orange,  who  now  appears  on 
the  scene,  for  he  had  discovered  that  Henry  and 
Philip  had  secretly  agreed  to  stamp  out  Protes- 
tantism in  the  Low  Countries  by  introducing  the 
Spanish  Inquisition,  and  that  the  alien  garrison 
was  to  be  the  means  of  putting  this  plan  into 
effect.  William  of  Orange  was  not  a  Fleming 
but  a  German;  he  had  expected  to  be  made 
regent  when  the  King  went  back  to  Spain,  and 
had  been  disappointed.  He  was  neither  a  Catholic 
nor  a  Protestant,  but  a  cold,  silent,  far-seeing 
politician  of  extremely  rationalistic  views.  He 
knew  that  the  spirit  of  independence  in  the 
Netherlands  was  so  dominating  that  Catholics 


A  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS  65 

and  Protestants  alike  could  be  allied  against 
both  the  Inquisition  and  a  foreign  garrison.  He 
cleverly  united  them  on  this  basis,  alienated  the 
last  flicker  of  friendly  feeling  on  the  part  of 
Philip,  and  so  precipitated  the  conflict  that  raged 
for  almost  a  century  to  the  ruin  and  misery  of 
all  the  seventeen  provinces.  Philip  appeared  to 
yield,  went  back  to  Spain,  and  at  once  began  his 
scheming  for  the  destruction  of  the  Protestant 
heresy  in  his  too-independent  territories. 

So  far  as  the  aristocracy,  the  rich  burghers,  and 
the  cultivated  classes  were  concerned,  Protes- 
tantism had  made  little  if  any  headway  in  spite 
of  the  wide  corruption  of  the  Church,  but  among 
the  peasants  and  the  ignorant,  particularly  in 
the  great  cities,  it  had  taken  firm  hold.  To  Philip 
it  was  both  a  damnable  heresy  and  a  civil  men- 
ace; he  hated  it  as  his  father  had  hated  it,  but 
Charles  V  was  of  a  different  mould  and  temper. 
Philip  was  a  Spanish  Catholic,  and  therein  (at 
that  time)  lay  all  the  difference.  To  him  with 
his  cold  mind  and  pitiless  temper  there  was  only 
one  question:  how  to  root  out  this  accursed  and 
poisonous  growth.  The  answer  was  at  hand  in 
the  shape  of  the  peculiar  type  of  inquisition  which 
had  been  invented  in  Spain  for  the  sole  purpose 


66  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

of  completing  the  expulsion  of  the  Moors  and 
Jews  from  the  Peninsula  after  the  final  defeat  of 
the  Mohammedan  invaders.  It  had  proved  its 
efficiency  to  admiration,  and,  though  it  had  never 
been  used  against  Christian  heretics,  Philip  felt 
(as  others  have  felt  after  him)  that  both  the 
righteous  State  and  the  Catholic  Church  were, 
through  the  King,  fighting  for  their  lives,  and 
that  he  had  no  right  to  balk  at  any  means  that 
offered  when  it  was  a  question  of  life  or  death. 

The  old  "Papal"  Inquisition,  which  came  into 
existence  toward  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  was  the  corollary  of  the  dawning  spirit  of 
the  Renaissance  with  which  it  synchronised,  was 
legitimate  enough,  if  you  hold,  as  every  one  held 
then,  that  spiritual  evil  is  as  wicked  as  material 
evil,  and  just  as  worthy  of  formal  punishment. 
Trials  were  conducted  according  to  civil  law, 
they  were  public,  and  the  secular  arm  alone  in- 
flicted punishment.  The  "Spanish"  Inquisition, 
which  is  the  form  so  bitterly  condemned  to-day, 
was  a  creature  of  the  Renaissance  in  its  fulness. 
It  was  an  engine  of  the  most  diabolical  effi- 
ciency, for  its  proceedings  were  secret,  its  finding 
irrevocable,  its  penalties  merciless  and  as  cruel  as 
English  criminal  law  in  the  seventeenth  and 


A  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS  67 

eighteenth  centuries,  though  it  lacked  certain  of 
the  refinements  of  torture  that  were  first  de- 
veloped under  "Good  King  Hal"  when  he  was 
waging  his  war  against  the  monks  and  monas- 
teries of  his  own  England. 

Had  Philip  been  dealing  with  the  Popes  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  he  could  never  have  imposed  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  on  the  Netherlands,  but  those 
of  the  Renaissance  were  as  different  as  possible, 
and  he  had  no  trouble  in  gaining  their  consent. 
A  few  burnings  took  place,  and  then  the  loyal 
and  Catholic  but  intensely  patriotic  nobles  took 
matters  into  their  own  hands  and  through  the 
regent,  Margaret  of  Parma,  warned  the  King  that 
unless  the  thing  was  stopped  the  provinces  would 
act  in  defence  of  their  own  rights  and  in  accor- 
dance with  their  solemnly  guaranteed  privileges. 
The  Protestant  mob  also  began  to  act  after  its 
own  fashion,  without  waiting  for  an  answer  from 
Philip,  and  week  after  week  carried  on  a  course 
of  destruction  that  wrecked  cathedrals,  monas- 
teries, churches,  and  destroyed  more  old  stained 
glass,  wonderful  statues,  great  pictures,  jewelled 
vestments,  and  sacred  vessels  than  have  escaped 
to  this  day.  The  senseless  and  sacrilegious  fury 
of  this  mob  of  the  baser  sort  not  only  lashed  the 


68  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

King  into  a  cold  fury  but  it  even  halted  some  of 
the  Catholic  nobles,  many  of  whom,  including 
Egrnont  himself,  began  to  wonder  if,  after  all,  the 
Inquisition  was  not  permissible  in  the  light  of  the 
revelations  that  were  being  made  in  the  dese- 
crated churches  of  Antwerp  and  Ghent  and  Tour- 
nai.  No  advantage  was  taken  of  this  changing 
sentiment,  however,  and,  ready  at  last,  Philip 
struck,  and  the  Duke  of  Alva,  with  an  army  of 
10,000  picked  men,  marched  up  from  Genoa,  oc- 
cupied Brussels,  seized  every  disaffected  leader,  in- 
cluding even  those  like  Egmont  and  Horn,  who 
were  both  loyal  and  devout  Catholics  (but  bar- 
ring Orange,  who  had  cautiously  retreated  to  Ger- 
many), and  established  the  "Council  of  Blood," 
which  during  the  first  week  of  its  activities  exe- 
cuted more  than  eight  hundred  men  whose  only 
crime  was  protesting  against  the  denial  of  their 
guaranteed  liberties  and  the  maintenance  of  the 
Inquisition. 

The  Prince  of  Orange  organised  in  Germany  a 
small  armed  force  for  the  deliverance  of  the 
cowed  and  horrified  Netherlanders,  but  his  first 
victory  over  Alva's  forces  was  answered  by  im- 
mediate reprisals  in  Brussels,  a  score  of  nobles 
being  sent  to  the  block,  including  Horn  and  Eg- 


From  a  photograph  by  Hanfstaengl 

THE  DUKE  OF  ALVA,  MORO  VAN  DASHORST 


A  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS  69 

mont,  the  latter  being  the  most  honoured  of  the 
nobles  and  as  good  a  Catholic  as  he  was  a  soldier. 
The  people  remained  absolutely  crushed,  mak- 
ing no  effort  to  rise  in  support  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange,  who,  defeated  by  Alva,  sought  the  aid  of 
the  French  Protestants,  attacked  from  the  sea  by 
means  of  privateers  who  preyed  on  Spanish  com- 
merce, and  finally,  by  establishing  a  base  in  Hol- 
land, raised  this  portion  of  the  Spanish  Nether- 
lands against  Alva  and  made  himself  actual  head 
of  a  new  state.  In  the  meantime  a  Huguenot 
army  had  laid  siege  to  Mons,  but  just  as  victory 
seemed  near  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew 
ended  the  Protestant  party  in  France  for  ever,  de- 
stroyed all  the  hopes  that  had  been  raised  through 
the  possibility  of  assistance  from  Coligny,  and 
sent  Orange  back  again  behind  the  Rhine,  leav- 
ing Flanders  and  Brabant  to  their  fate.  Alva 
saw  to  it  that  this  was  sufficiently  awful,  and  then 
began  operations  against  Holland,  but  by  this 
time  Philip  had  become  thoroughly  tired  of  the 
costly  war  and  listened  willingly  to  the  enemies 
of  the  terrible  duke,  recalled  him,  and  sent  in  his 
place  the  comparatively  mild  and  accommodating 
Requesens. 

The  tale  is  now  one  of  progressive  and  finally 


70  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

successful  efforts  at  pacifying  the  country,  the 
undoing  so  far  as  possible  of  the  bloody  work  of 
Alva,  the  winning  back  to  the  Church  and  to 
the  Spanish  crown  of  all  those  who  had  not  gone 
over  definitely  to  Protestantism  and  the  Prince 
of  Orange.  Both  the  Pope  and  the  King  offered 
full  amnesty,  and  the  southern  provinces,  those, 
that  is,  that  now  form  the  kingdom  of  Belgium, 
accepted  at  once  and  completely,  for  after  all 
they  were  solidly  Catholic  and  in  principle  not 
averse  to  Spanish  dominion.  The  northern  prov- 
inces— i.  e.,  Holland — rejected  all  overtures,  bind- 
ing themselves  completely,  implacably,  and  sav- 
agely to  Protestantism,  and  from  now  on  the 
former  Spanish  Netherlands  became  two  states: 
Holland,  soon  to  win  its  independence,  and  Bel- 
gium, now  and  for  a  long  time  to  come,  a  Spanish 
province. 

Order  was  still  far  away.  It  was  in  the  year 
1573  that  Requesens  came  to  reverse  the  policy 
of  Alva,  and  not  until  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  in 
1715,  when  Spanish  rule  was  finally  terminated, 
that  there  was  any  rest  or  relief  for  the  tortured 
and  ruined  provinces  of  Flanders  and  Brabant. 
Requesens  died;  the  Spanish  troops  mutinied,  were 
joined  by  the  German  mercenaries,  and  began  a 


A  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS  71 

war  on  their  own  account,  burning  and  sacking 
Antwerp,  butchering  6,000  of  the  population, 
and  harrying  the  country  right  and  left.  Then 
came  Don  John  of  Austria,  Philip's  new  governor- 
general,  the  victor  of  Lepanto,  and  a  figure  out  of 
the  pages  of  mediaeval  romance.  He  came  too 
late;  anarchy  was  firmly  fixed  in  the  saddle,  riding 
rough-shod  over  the  desolated  garden  of  Europe. 
Abandoning  his  original  policy  of  pacification, 
he  turned  to  war  and  was  successful,  but  only  to 
find  about  every  power  in  Europe  represented  in 
the  roaring  inferno.  Orange  was  fighting  from  Ant- 
werp as  his  headquarters,  the  provincial  represent- 
atives, with  Brussels  as  their  centre,  were  howling 
for  help  from  any  source;  the  Protestant  faction 
called  John  Casimir,  Count  Palatine,  to  their  as- 
sistance, while  the  Catholics  appealed  to  the  Duke 
d'Alengon,  and  both  put  in  an  appearance,  the  lat- 
ter seizing  Maubeuge  and  working  thence  into  the 
interior,  while  the  former  defeated  Don  John  in 
a  pitched  battle  and  drove  him  back  to  Namur, 
where  in  a  few  months  he  died  of  chagrin  and  a 
broken  heart,  after  making  his  nephew  Alexander 
Farnese,  Prince  of  Parma,  his  successor  in  the 
field. 

Hell  is  the  only  name  that  can  be  applied  to 


72  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

the  unhappy  land,  the  condition  of  which  was  not 
unlike  that  of  Mexico  in  this  year  of  enlighten- 
ment, 1915.  The  Renaissance  and  the  Reforma- 
tion together  had  extinguished  both  civilisation 
and  culture  over  the  greater  part  of  Europe; 
war  was  everywhere  and  incessant,  all  princi- 
ple had  been  abandoned  and  the  ethical  stand- 
ards of  society  had  disappeared.  Slaughter,  civil 
war,  assassination,  treason,  and  sacrilege  howled 
through  an  ever-widening  desolation  and  the  end 
of  the  world  seemed  at  hand.  Fortunately,  in 
a  way,  the  outrageous  career  of  the  Protestants 
served  as  an  impulse  to  union;  their  savagery  in 
Ghent  and  Brussels  somehow  pulled  the  people 
of  Belgium  together  and  enabled  Parma  to  win 
some  small  order  out  of  the  insane  chaos.  He 
began  a  new  campaign,  drove  out  the  French, 
laid  siege  to  the  Calvinists  in  Ghent,  and  at  last 
(the  Prince  of  Orange  having  been  assassinated 
at  the  instigation  of  Philip)  broke  down  the  last 
Protestant  resistance  in  Brussels  and  Antwerp 
and  for  the  moment  restored  peace  over  a  de- 
serted, ruined,  and  blood-stained  land.  And  then 
Philip  II  died  and  dying  abandoned  the  coun- 
try he  had  received  as  the  richest  in  Europe  and 
left  as  the  most  miserable  and  poverty-stricken, 


A  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS  73 

handing  it  over  to  new  rulers  in  the  persons  of 
his  daughter  Isabella  and  her  husband,  the  Arch- 
duke Albert  of  Austria. 

The  great  and  happy  and  wealthy  state  created 
by  the  House  of  Burgundy  had  been  utterly  de- 
stroyed and  irretrievably  ruined.  A  new  Protes- 
tant state  had  been  formed  from  one  fragment 
in  the  north,  other  portions  were  shortly  to  be 
incorporated  in  France,  and  the  nine  provinces 
that  still  remained  out  of  the  original  seventeen 
were  hardly  more  than  a  geographical  abstrac- 
tion. Half  the  great  cities  had  been  sacked  and 
burned,  the  craftsmen  and  artisans  were  slaugh- 
tered or  in  exile,  the  cold  and  greedy  Hollanders 
had  seized  (and  were  to  retain  by  force  or  fraud) 
the  vast  commerce  that  once  was  the  possession 
of  Flanders  and  Brabant,  agriculture  had  ceased, 
famine  was  universal,  religion  and  mercy  and 
education  were  memories,  while  the  old  civic 
spirit  and  the  old  freedom  and  independence  were 
things  of  so  long  ago  they  were  not  even  re- 
membered. 

To  do  them  justice,  the  new  sovereigns  meant 
well  by  the  exhausted  country,  but  first  of  all 
they  had  set  their  hearts  on  the  crushing  of  the 
Protestant  Netherlands,  and  nine  years  of  war 


74  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

set  in  which  ended  at  last  with  the  complete 
victory  of  the  Dutch  republic  and  its  acknowl- 
edged independence.  Then  came  the  anomaly  of 
twelve  years  of  peace  with  the  astonishing  out- 
burst of  a  genuine  and  brilliant  if  evanescent 
culture.  Peace  is  a  good  foundation  for  indus- 
try, trade,  and  commerce,  but  the  fact  is  un- 
avoidable that  the  black  ploughing  and  the  red 
fertilising  of  a  land  by  war  frequently  bring  a 
luxuriant  crop  of  those  cultural  products  that  have 
issue  in  character  as  they  follow  from  it.  Here 
in  Flanders  the  years  between  the  Peace  of  Ant- 
werp in  1609  and  the  restoration  of  Spanish  rule 
on  the  death  of  Albert  in  1624,  were  opulent 
with  all  manner  of  civic  and  personal  wealth  in 
those  lines  that  are  cultural  rather  than  material. 
It  was  a  time  of  the  restoration  of  religion  through 
new  monastic  foundations,  of  the  establishing  of 
houses  of  mercy,  of  the  building  up  of  great  uni- 
versities, of  the  development  of  printing,  of  the 
production  of  great  scientists  and  scholars,  of  a 
new  era  of  painting.  The  University  of  Louvain 
dates  from  this  time,  the  great  printing-house  of 
the  Plantins  and  the  Moretus,  the  art  of  Rubens 
and  Vandyck. 

It  was  all  temporary,  however,  and  ephemeral. 


A  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS  75 

Spain  took  charge  once  more,  the  Dutch  con- 
tinued their  policy  of  commercial  and  religious 
aggression,  the  Thirty  Years'  War  drew  the  un- 
fortunate provinces  into  its  whirlpool;  the  war 
between  France  and  Spain  was  largely  fought 
on  their  territory,  the  war  of  France  against  the 
United  Netherlands  resulted  in  the  seizure  by 
the  unsuccessful  party — France — of  Belgian  ter- 
ritory as  a  salve  to  its  wounded  pride.  Year 
after  year  Belgium  was  subject  to  renewed  dev- 
astations; what  the  Protestants  and  Spaniards 
had  left  the  French  despoiled.  Brussels,  which 
had  now  become  the  richest  and  most  splendid 
of  the  cities,  was  bombarded  with  red-hot  can- 
non balls  and  almost  wholly  destroyed,  sixteen 
churches  and  four  thousand  houses  being  burned, 
and  the  great  city  deprived  of  almost  its  last  ex- 
amples of  the  great  art  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

And  so  the  wretched  tale  goes  on,  generation 
after  generation.  God  alone  knows  how  or  why 
anything  was  left  in  Belgium,  either  of  art  or 
culture  or  character  or  religion,  or  even  of  the 
rudiments  of  civilisation.  Still  something  did 
remain  for  destruction,  as  was  proved  a  little  later 
by  the  revolutionists  of  France  and  recently  by 
the  Prussians,  both  of  whom  have  performed  the 


76  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

final  work  quite  perfectly.  The  Heart  of  Europe 
had  been  torn,  lacerated,  crushed,  for  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  years,  and  yet  somehow  it  con- 
tinued to  beat  on.  A  great  Christian  culture,  a 
great  congeries  of  Christian  peoples,  product  of 
the  splendid  centuries  from  1000  to  1500  A.  D., 
had  been  destroyed  and  superseded  by  the  very 
different  force  engendered  by  Renaissance  and 
Reformation.  If  there  are  those  who  still,  de- 
spite the  blazing  enlightenment  of  the  last  twelve- 
month, retain  any  illusions  as  to  the  compar- 
ative beneficence  of  the  two  epochs,  it  would  be 
well  for  them  to  consider  in  detail  the  annals  and 
the  peoples  and  the  personalities  of  the  Heart  of 
Europe  during  the  five  centuries  of  medievalism, 
and  the  same  during  the  five  centuries  of  the 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation.  The  contrast 
is  striking,  the  revision  of  judgments  unescapable, 
the  lesson,  immediately  to  be  applied  in  the  pres- 
ent crisis,  pregnant  of  possible  benefits. 

With  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  all  that  is  now  Bel- 
gium passed  to  the  Emperor  Charles  VI,  and  Aus- 
trian dominion  began.  In  contrast  to  the  pre- 
ceding horrors  it  was  comparatively  uneventful; 
while  Prince  Charles  of  Lorraine  was  governor 
the  country  was  quiet  and  prosperous  and  a  cer- 


A  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS  77 

tain  advance  occurred  on  cultural  lines.  This  en- 
lightened prince  deserves  well  of  history  in  one 
respect  ,at  least,  for,  by  an  imperial  decree  he 
caused  to  be  issued,  it  was  solemnly  asserted  that 
a  gentleman  did  not  lose  his  status  as  such  if  he 
indulged  in  the  practice  of  the  arts  or  letters ! 
Joseph  II,  who  followed  him,  was  a  pedantic  re- 
former of  laudable  intentions,  who  set  himself  to 
the  perfecting  of  everything,  both  religious  and 
secular,  to  the  extreme  irritation  of  his  people 
who  simply  wanted  to  govern  themselves  and 
apparently  cared  little  whether  this  were  well 
done  or  ill.  In  the  end  the  whole  country  broke 
up  again  in  rebellion  and  disorder,  the  nobles 
leagued  in  one  group  under  the  Duke  d'Arenberg, 
the  lower  classes  in  a  second  with  a  vulgar  and 
noisy  demagogue,  Van  der  Noot,  as  its  leader. 
Somehow  or  other  they  managed  to  get  together 
at  Breda,  raised  an  army,  defeated  the  Austrian 
garrisons,  and  drove  the  Emperor  Joseph  across 
the  Meuse  when  he  forthwith  died  of  sheer  dis- 
couragement. 

Then  followed  a  short-lived  "republic"  en- 
gineered by  Van  der  Noot,  who  was  an  adherent 
of  the  new  French  ideas,  with  an  attack  on  the 
nobles  which  was  sufficiently  successful  to  bring 


78  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

their  party  to  an  end.  Next,  the  powers  who 
looked  most  askance  at  the  fast-growing  revolu- 
tion— England,  Holland,  and  Prussia — united  for 
the  restoration  of  Austrian  authority,  on  gen- 
eral principles,  and  the  Emperor  Leopold  II, 
with  their  support,  asserted,  and  then  established 
his  authority,  capturing  Namur  and  within  two 
weeks  occupying  the  whole  country  (which  ac- 
cepted him  contentedly  enough),  driving  the  am- 
bitious advocate  with  the  revolutionary  tenden- 
cies into  a  well-merited  exile.  Austria  tried 
honestly  enough  to  conciliate  the  country,  but 
its  temper  and  inclinations  were  otherwise,  so 
France  was  asked  to  intervene,  which  she  was  not 
loath  to  do,  sending  Dumouriez  to  undertake  the 
task.  Badly  beaten  at  first,  he  succeeded  finally 
at  Valmy  and  Jemappes,  and  the  French  Revolu- 
tion assumed  control.  The  cabal  of  assassins  then 
in  power  in  Paris  decreed  that  Belgium  should  be 
saved,  but  that  first  she  must  be  purged,  and  a 
choice  assortment  of  thirty  ruffians  was  sent  to 
Brussels  to  see  that  this  was  done.  A  guillotine 
was  set  up  at  once,  and  clerics,  nobles,  and  the 
wealthier  merchants  became  its  victims,  while 
the  patriot  army,  supported  by  the  local  revolu- 
tionists, acted  after  their  kind  and  sacked  the 


A  SPANISH   NETHERLANDS  79 

remaining  churches,  destroyed  religious  houses, 
and  generally  plundered  whatever  they  safely 
could,  i.  e.,  whatever  was  unable  to  defend  itself. 
Dumouriez  countenanced  none  of  this,  but  he 
was  playing  a  double  game,  acting  ostensibly  for 
the  cabal  in  Paris  though  with  the  idea  always 
before  him  that  if  he  could  control  Belgium  and 
conquer  Holland  he  would  be  in  a  good  position 
from  which  to  turn  on  his  employers,  crush  them, 
and  then  restore  the  monarchy  on  constitutional 
lines.  Unfortunately  for  his  plans,  he  was  de- 
feated by  the  allies  and  again  Austria  won  back 
her  insecure  provinces.  She  was  received  with 
the  facile  enthusiasm  which  now  seemed  chronic 
with  the  shattered  Belgian  character,  but  after 
a  few  months  was  driven  out  for  the  last  time 
when  France  was  finally  victorious  over  the  half- 
hearted, selfish,  and  ineffectual  allies,  only  one  of 
whom,  England,  was  waging  war  against  the  re- 
public with  anything  approaching  sincerity  and 
determination. 

Again  the  French — or  rather  the  republican 
faction — entered  into  possession,  and  unhappy 
Belgium  felt  the  full  force  of  its  grinning  hypoc- 
risy, its  satanic  savagery,  and  its  unscrupulous 
greed.  "Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity"  was 


80  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

painted  on  the  walls,  and  simultaneously  the  coun- 
try was  robbed  of  its  last  coins,  its  laws  and 
privileges  were  overthrown,  its  citizens  deprived 
of  even  the  most  fundamental  rights  of  liberty 
and  property,  while  the  few  remaining  abbeys 
and  castles  were  sacked,  burned,  and  their  ruins 
razed  to  the  ground.  Alva  had  been  an  amateur 
compared  with  the  new  apostles  of  liberty,  and 
when  at  last  Belgium  was  declared  regenerate 
and  was  incorporated  in  the  French  "republic," 
nothing  remained  for  incorporation  except  a 
name,  a  memory,  and  a  huddle  of  entirely  ruined 
and  perfectly  hopeless  victims  of  four  centuries 
of  cumulative  enlightenment  and  progress. 

Of  course  they  rebelled;  of  course  whole  groups 
of  desperate  men  took  to  the  forests  and  moors, 
robbing,  killing,  existing  as  best  they  could,  and 
of  course  they  were  crushed  again  and  again;  at 
last,  however,  Bonaparte  began  to  bring  some 
order  out  of  the  republican  anarchy,  and  condi- 
tions improved.  When  at  last  he  proclaimed 
himself  Emperor  the  Belgians  accepted  him  with 
the  same  avidity  they  always  had  shown  for  any 
man  who  promised  some  alleviation  of  their  in- 
tolerable sufferings.  Holland  was  occupied  and 
given  a  king  of  its  own,  Napoleon's  brother  Louis, 


A  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS  81 

who  was  not  only  the  strongest  and  finest  char- 
acter in  the  family,  but  so  righteous  in  his  king- 
ship and  so  whole-heartedly  devoted  to  his  Dutch 
that  he  soon  alienated  the  sympathies  of  his  im- 
perial brother  while  failing  to  gain  those  of  his 
somewhat  difficult  subjects. 

The  dream  empire  began  to  dissolve;  Holland 
revolted,  and  the  Prince  of  Orange  was  restored; 
Belgium  was  occupied  by  the  Allies,  who  had  got 
to  work  again,  and  the  scheme  of  a  new  state,  to 
be  formed  of  all  the  old  seventeen  provinces 
united  under  the  Prince  of  Orange,  was  brought 
forward  against  the  wishes  of  the  Belgians,  who 
preferred  the  restoration  of  Austrian  rule.  They 
had  lived  too  close  to  their  Protestant  Dutch 
neighbours  and  had  too  keen  a  memory  of  their 
character  and  habits  to  desire  amalgamation  with 
them  on  any  terms. 

Napoleon  went  to  Elba,  came  back,  called  on 
his  "loyal  Belgians"  to  support  him,  advanced 
into  their  territories,  and  at  Waterloo  lost  every- 
thing and  melted  away  into  history  and  legend, 
leaving  Belgium  in  unnatural  union  with  the 
Dutch  provinces,  where  it  remained  for  some 
fifteen  years,  revolting  in  1830,  making  good  its 
rebellion,  and  establishing  itself  as  an  indepen- 


82  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

dent  state  under  the  sovereignty  of  Prince  Leo- 
pold of  Saxe-Cobourg,  who  had  been  elected 
King  on  the  refusal  of  the  Due  de  Nemours,  first 
chosen  by  the  victorious  provisional  government. 
The  long  agony  was  at  an  end;  it  had  lasted 
from  August  22,  1567,  when  the  Duke  of  Alva 
entered  Brussels,  until  July  21,  1831,  when  Leo- 
pold I  was  crowned  King  of  Belgium,  a  period  of 
two  hundred  and  sixty -four  years.  Other  peoples 
and  other  states  have  been  brought  low,  time  out 
of  mind;  have  suffered,  disintegrated,  and  disap- 
peared. It  would  be  hard  to  find  another  in- 
stance, however,  where  so  fabulously  rich  a  peo- 
ple, and  so  cultivated  withal,  so  supreme  in  their 
achievement  of  a  lofty  and  well-rounded  civilisa- 
tion, have  been  called  upon  to  submit  to  so  pro- 
longed, varied,  and  searching  an  assault,  to  descend 
to  such  depths  of  misery,  poverty,  and  degradation 
—and  who  yet  have  preserved  through  two  cen- 
turies and  a  half  of  agony  and  spoliation  a  tradi- 
tion and  a  habit  of  righteousness  that,  when  the 
great  test  arrived,  blazed  upward  in  sudden  fierce- 
ness of  self-revelation  to  the  confusion  of  new 
enemies  and  the  wonder  of  a  world.  What  lies 
beyond  awaits  the  proof,  but  for  the  moment  three 
centuries  have  dropped  away  and  the  old  inde- 


A  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS  83 

pendence,  the  old  fearlessness,  the  old  honour  of 
Bruges  and  Ghent,  of  Liege  and  Malines  shine 
again  on  old  battle-fields  of  new  carnage  and  in 
new  hearts  of  old  righteousness.  The  new  era  be- 
gins, and  the  world  waits,  confident  of  the  issue. 


THE   GLORY   OF   A    GREAT   ART 

T3ETWEEN  Paris  and  Cologne,  Strasbourg 
•LJ  and  Bruges  lies,  in  little,  nearly  the  whole 
history  of  northern  architecture  from  Charle- 
magne to  the  last  Louis  of  France,  when  it  ceased 
to  be  an  art  and  became  a  fashion.  The  greater 
part  of  Normandy  lies,  it  is  true,  across  the  Seine, 
and  is,  for  the  time,  beyond  our  field  of  vision, 
but,  barring  Caen,  architectural  significance  is 
well  concentrated  in  the  triangle,  Rouen,  Dieppe, 
le  Havre.  The  same  is  true  of  the  old  Royaume 
of  France;  though  Chartres  and  Bourges  lie  to 
the  south,  the  beginning,  and  in  some  sense  the 
culmination,  of  Gothic  is  to  be  found  between 
Seine  and  Somme.  In  the  east,  to  the  Rhine,  we 
have  practically  all  that  Germany  has  contrib- 
uted, except  in  the  later  days  of  the  Renaissance. 
If  we  like,  we  may  go  far  beyond  the  dim  and 
mysterious  era  of  the  Carolings,  finding  in  Treves 
old  Roman  ruins  that  take  us  back  four  or  five 
centuries  earlier,  but  the  real  history  of  this  region 
begins  with  Charlemagne  and  takes  us  to  his  fa- 

84 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART     85 

vourite  city  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  for  the  single,  but 
vastly  significant,  building  left  us  as  evidence  of 
his  inspiration  and  his  creative  power.  With  the 
ending  of  this  day-dream  there  comes  a  great 
silence,  while  civilisation  and  culture  disappear 
again,  to  be  restored  two  centuries  later,  far  to 
the  west,  and  at  the  hands  of  the  Normans.  Here 
we  find  St.  Georges  de  Bocherville,  Fecamp,  and 
the  inestimable  and  forgotten  ruins  of  Jumieges. 
For  transition  to  Gothic  we  have  Senlis,  Soissons, 
Noyon,  with  Laon  and  Paris  as  earliest  Gothic  of 
pure  and  consistent  type;  Chalons,  Amiens,  and 
Reims  for  culmination,  and  Abbeville,  Rouen, 
Beauvais,  Troyes,  and  Strasbourg  for  its  sump- 
tuous decline. 

From  the  other  hand  we  go  on  from  Aix  to 
Cologne  for  the  fine  eleventh-century  work  that 
took  up  the  tale  after  the  second  Dark  Ages  that 
followed  the  ending  of  the  empire  of  the  Carolings, 
with  more  examples  at  Laach  and  in  Hildesheim, 
which  also  are  beyond  our  survey.  A  century 
later  we  get  the  consistent  Teutonic  art  of  Treves, 
Mayence,  Spires,  and  Worms,  while  the  high 
Gothic  of  the  noon  of  medievalism  is  found  at 
Cologne  and  Strasbourg,  with  the  last  rich  fan- 
tasy of  all,  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 


86  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

turies,  in  Brussels  and  Antwerp  and  Malines,  in 
Courtrai,  Tournai,  Namur,  Louvain,  Ghent,  Ypres, 
and  Bruges.  For  Renaissance  we  find  all  we  need, 
and  everywhere;  churches,  palaces,  guild-halls, 
chateaux,  dwellings,  from  the  fanciful  transition 
at  Dieppe,  Rouen,  Gisors,  to  the  sophisticated, 
well-conditioned,  and  perfectly  artificial  restored 
classic  of  Nancy. 

As  there  is  no  other  country  in  the  north,  of 
equal  area,  where  history  has  been  made  so 
plenteously  and  of  such  varied  quality,  so  it  is 
with  its  art,  and  its  architecture  in  particular, 
which  marks  the  beginnings,  the  culmination,  and 
the  close  of  the  three  stylistic  periods  of  Christian 
civilisation  in  the  West — Carolingian,  Norman, 
and  Gothic — and  through  monuments  singularly 
significant  and  equally  notable  in  their  perfection. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  quote  a  tenth  of  them; 
there  are  a  hundred  at  least,  each  of  which  de- 
mands (and  many  have  received)  a  volume  or 
more,  but  at  least  we  can  pick  the  most  priceless, 
either  for  history  or  beauty,  in  a  farewell  that 
may  be  final  for  all,  as  already  it  is  for  such  con- 
summate and  vanished  masterpieces  as  the  Cloth 
Hall  at  Ypres  and  the  Cathedral  of  Reims. 

Let  us  begin  with  Aix,  just  over  the  Belgian 


JUMIEGES 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART     87 

frontier,  the  "City  of  the  Great  King,"  where 
culture  lightened  again  after  the  long  night,  and 
where,  of  all  the  churches  and  palaces  of  the 
Emperor,  only  one  remains  as  evidence  of  what 
he  did.  The  royal  chapel  has  been  built  onto  and 
over  and  around,  but  the  original  norm  remains 
in  the  shape  of  that  polygonal  form  with  sur- 
rounding arcades  that  was  a  step  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  perfect  Gothic  chevet.  To  a  great 
extent  it  is  a  replica  of  San  Vitale  in  Ravenna, 
and  may  very  well  have  been  built  by  the  descen- 
dants of  those  Roman  craftsmen  who,  after  the 
fall  of  the  one-time  capitol  of  the  world,  sought 
refuge  either  under  Byzantine  protection  in  Ra- 
venna or  on  Lake  Como,  where  the  tradition  is 
they  carefully  cherished  the  traditions  and  the 
esoteric  mysteries  of  their  art,  perpetuating  the 
slowly  fading  memory  through  secret  lodges  that, 
some  held,  were  the  progenitors  of  modern  free- 
masonry. 

When  the  possibilities  of  a  new  culture  and  a 
restored  civilisation  revealed  themselves  to  the 
conqueror,  who  was  also  statesman,  patriot,  and 
(after  his  dim  and  flickering  light)  Christian,  two 
centuries  had  left  the  West  a  wilderness,  and  all 
was  to  do  over  again.  There  were,  it  seemed, 


88  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

neither  scholars  nor  artists  nor  righteous  leaders 
of  any  sort  in  the  world,  and  the  task  must  have 
appeared  hopeless.  Charlemagne,  undaunted,  sent 
east  and  west,  from  Britain  to  Spain,  searching 
out  those  who,  by  report,  rose  above  the  hopeless 
level  of  barbarian  mediocrity.  Alcuin  of  Britain, 
Peter  of  Pisa,  Theodulphus,  Hincmar,  Eriugena, 
Radbertus  Maurus,  gathered  around  him  at  Aix, 
forming  a  cultural  centre,  reforming  the  Church, 
building  up  schools,  creating  an  art  almost  out 
of  nothing. 

There  was  little  enough,  though  Rome  had  its 
basilicas  of  the  time  of  Constantine — San  Paolo, 
San  Lorenzo,  Santa  Maria  Maggiore;  from  the 
East,  it  is  true,  travellers  brought  back  wondering 
stories  of  the  splendour  of  Justinian's  churches, 
with  Hagia  Sophia  at  the  head;  in  Ravenna  were 
the  more  modest  monuments  of  the  Exarchate — 
Sant'  Apollinare  in  Classe,  San  Vitale — in  Istria, 
at  Parenzo  and  Grado,  were  churches  showing 
some  new  elements  probably  provided  by  Lom- 
bard builders,  and  San  Pietro,  Toscanella  stood 
like  a  miracle,  novel,  without  forebears,  a  new 
version  of  an  ancient  theme.  These  are  what  we 
have  left,  and  then  there  was  more,  for  much  has 
since  been  destroyed,  but  most  of  it  lay  far  afield, 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART     89 

and  in  the  north  there  was  nothing.  The  work 
of  co-ordination  was  well  performed,  however, 
and  the  succession  was  re-established;  after  the 
chapel  at  Aix,  therefore,  architectural  develop- 
ment was  continuous,  if  moderate,  though  any 
estimate  must  be  dubious  owing  to  the  almost 
complete  destruction  of  the  monuments.  We  still 
have  the  apses  of  Sant'  Ambrogio  in  Milan;  San 
Donato,  Zara,  N.  D.  de  la  Couture  of  Le  Mans, 
and  Montier  en  Der,  none  of  them  particularly 
inspiring  or  inspired,  and  none  with  any  hint  of 
what  was  suddenly  to  happen  at  Jumieges  in 
the  eleventh  century.  That  the  latter  building 
may  not  have  been  as  amazing  an  innovation  as 
it  appears  is  indicated  by  fragments  and  foun- 
dations of  the  work  that  came  between  it  and 
Charlemagne,  as  at  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  where 
the  Revolution  has  left  us  nothing  but  foundations 
indicative  of  a  former  superstructure  that  may 
well  have  been  the  connecting-link,  and  might 
have  changed  our  entire  estimate  of  the  quality 
of  the  architecture  of  the  second  Dark  Ages.  As 
it  is,  this  chapel  at  Aix  stands  not  only  first  in 
the  great  recovery  of  the  eighth  century,  but 
almost  unique,  with  no  successors  for  nearly  three 
centuries. 


90  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

When  the  true  dawn  begins  to  lighten  the  hills, 
it  is  in  the  west  that  its  coming  is  foreshown,  in 
that  Duchy  of  Normandy,  where  in  a  century 
the  fierce  Vikings,  who  had  been  driven  from  the 
coast  of  Flanders  in  their  forays  from  the  Baltic, 
had  become  the  finely  tempered  material  out  of 
which  was  to  be  forged,  by  the  monks  of  Cluny, 
a  Catholic  civilisation  that  was  to  extend  itself 
over  all  western  Europe  and  endure  for  five  cen- 
turies. Of  the  three  great  abbeys  that  were  the 
centres  from  which  radiated  the  great  trans- 
forming force,  Bee,  Fecamp,  and  Jumieges,  the 
two  latter  lie  on  our  side  of  the  Seine,  with  the 
third  only  ten  miles  on  the  other  side,  while  St. 
Georges  de  Bocherville,  intact  except  for  its 
pestilential  restoration,  is  of  the  same  period,  as 
is  Cerisy  le  Foret.  Caen,  with  its  two  abbeys  of 
the  Conqueror,  inestimable  monuments  of  archi- 
tectural history,  is  well  to  the  west,  with  Evreux, 
Lisieux,  Bayeux,  and  Mont  St.  Michel,  but  we 
have  enough  on  the  right  bank  to  demonstrate 
the  nature  and  the  greatness  of  the  work  ac- 
complished by  Cluny  and  the  Normans  in  a 
union  cemented  by  a  vital  and  crescent  Chris- 
tianity. 

Jumieges  stands  first,  in  its  forgotten  loop  of 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART     91 

the  Seine,  and  is  amazing,  no  less.  But  for  its 
fine  new  fourteenth-century  chevet,  it  was,  at 
the  time  of  the  French  Revolution,  almost  in  its 
original  state,  but  it  was  destroyed  then,  with 
Cluny,  Avranches,  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  and 
other  priceless  monuments,  though  by  no  means 
so  completely.  To-day  its  towering  walls,  rising 
above  thick  trees  and  greenery,  are  startlingly 
picturesque,  but  their  great  value  lies  in  the 
revelation  they  make  of  what  was  possible  in  the 
earliest  days  of  Christian  recovery.  The  work 
was  begun  in  1040  and  finished  within  twenty- 
five  years,  being  followed  immediately  by  the 
abbeys  of  Caen,  as  these  were  followed  by  St. 
Georges  de  Bocherville.  The  original  plan  was 
in  each  case  about  the  same,  the  standard  type, 
originally  Latin,  with  Syrian,  and  probably  Lom- 
bard and  Carolingian,  developments;  cruciform, 
aisled  both  in  nave  and  choir,  the  latter  being  of 
two  bays  only,  with  an  apse,  but  no  apsidal  aisle 
and  chapels  as  at  Tours.  The  transepts  are  of  two 
bays  on  either  side  the  central  tower,  the  end  bays 
having  galleries  or  tribunes,  with  a  subordinate  apse 
to  the  east,  so  forming,  in  the  lower  stage,  small, 
low  chapels.  It  is  in  the  working  upward  from 
this  plan  that  the  significant  developments  ap- 


92  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

pear,  and  both  here  and  at  Cerisy  le  Foret,  we 
find  the  order  of  round-arched  arcade,  high  tri- 
forium  of  two  arches  under  a  containing  arch, 
and  a  single  clerestory  window,  Cerisy  having 
as  well  an  open  clerestory  arcade  of  three  units. 
The  system  is  clearly  alternating,  as  in  Lombardy 
and  Tuscany,  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  vault- 
ing was  ever  contemplated;  instead,  I  think  it 
certain  that  great  transverse  arches  on  every 
other  pier,  supporting  a  wooden  roof,  were  in 
mind,  after  the  Syrian  fashion,  as  it  was  later 
modified  at  San  Miniato  in  Florence,  a  few  years 
before,  though  these  were  certainly  never  built  at 
Jumieges.  The  west  front,  with  its  tall,  flanking 
towers,  is  of  the  Como  type  (query:  Is  the  hand 
of  the  Comacine  master  visible  here?),  while  all 
the  vertical  proportions  are  more  lofty  and  aspir- 
ing than  had  ever  been  known  before.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  given  the  chevet  with  its  aisle  and  radiat- 
ing chapels,  which  was  already  being  worked  out 
farther  south  by  the  simple  process  of  halving 
the  Syrian,  Byzantine,  Ravennesque,  and  Caro- 
lingian  polygonal  church  and  attaching  this  to 
the  simultaneously  developed  nave,  and  you  have 
all  the  potency  of  the  Gothic  system,  the  high 
vault  (sexpartite  or  quadripartite)  with  its  flying 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART     93 

buttresses  now  to  be  worked  out  at  Caen,  giving 
the  final  structural  element,  while  the  expanding 
Catholic  faith  and  the  buoyant  northern  blood 
were  woven  together  to  have  issue  in  that  es- 
sentially mediaeval  character  which  was  to  trans- 
form the  whole,  infusing  it  with  that  peculiar 
spiritual  quality  which  gave  its  distinctive  char- 
acter, through  a  new  vision  of  beauty,  to  the  art 
that  had  been  evolved  for  the  full  expression  of 
a  Christian  civilisation  at  last  triumphant  and 
supreme  over  a  dead  paganism. 

After  Cluny  and  Jumieges,  Paris,  Bourges, 
Chartres,  and  Reims  are  inevitable,  and  the  work- 
ing out  of  a  great  destiny  is  headlong  and  almost 
incredible.  Jumieges  was  finished  in  1066,  the 
year  of  the  Norman  conquest  of  England;  Reims 
was  begun  in  1212.  Within  a  space  of  a  century 
and  a  half  the  greatest  architectural  evolution  in 
history  had  taken  place,  so  echoing  and  voicing 
an  equally  unprecedented  development  in  human 
character  and  culture.  In  1066,  hardly  more 
than  fifty  years  had  passed  since  Christian  so- 
ciety emerged  from  two  centuries  of  barbarism; 
in  1212  it  had  mounted  to  the  loftiest  levels  of 
human  achievement,  with  a  theology,  a  philos- 
ophy, and  an  art,  whatever  its  form,  with  which 


94  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

there  had  been  nothing  comparable  in  the  past, 
with  which  the  achievements  that  were  to  follow, 
as  they  now  show  themselves  in  the  red  light  of 
a  revealing  war,  seem  only  the  insane  wanderings 
of  a  disorganised  horde. 

The  sequence  of  development  is  well  worked 
out  east  of  the  Seine,  and  at  the  hands  of  the 
Franks  of  the  "Royaume,"  now  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Cistercians,  as  a  century  before  the 
Normans  had  been  controlled  by  the  Cluniacs. 
This  constant  revivification  of  monasticism  during 
crescent  periods  of  human  growth  is  a  very  in- 
teresting phenomenon.  Apparently  monasticism, 
which  has  accompanied  Christianity  from  its 
earliest  beginning  until  to-day,  is  an  essential  por- 
tion of  its  working  structure,  and  if  you  accept 
Christianity  in  fact,  you  cannot  escape  accepting 
the  "religious  life"  in  principle.  It  seems,  how- 
ever, that  it  is  always  in  unstable  equilibrium, 
prone  to  inevitable  decadence,  and  no  order  lasts 
out  three  generations  without  losing  its  benefi- 
cent energy.  When  life  is  on  its  periodic  upward 
curve,  a  reformation  always  occurs  at  the  critical 
moment,  and  there  is  no  loss  of  impetus;  so  the 
original  Benedictinism  which  had  served  Charle- 
magne so  well,  but  had  sunk  into  worse  than  in- 
action, gave  place  in  the  eleventh  century  to  the 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART     95 

great  Cluniac  reform,  which  in  its  turn  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  Cistercian  reform,  as  this  yielded 
after  another  hundred  years  to  the  reform  of  St. 
Dominic  and  St.  Francis. 

Now  the  Romanesque  art  of  Toulouse,  Aqui- 
taine,  and  Burgundy,  the  Norman  of  Normandy 
and  England,  the  Rhenish  of  Germany,  were 
largely  Benedictine  of  the  Cluniac  mode,  and 
the  style  rapidly  became  inordinately  sumptuous, 
costly,  and  magnificent,  as  at  Aries,  Toulouse,  Poi- 
tiers, Glastonbury,  Durham.  It  has  been  said  of 
monastic  movements:  "First  generation  pious,  sec- 
ond generation  learned,  third  generation  decadent." 
Certainly  as  the  Benedictines  in  France  went  on 
to  the  twelfth  century,  their  original  austerity  and 
fervour  were  relaxed,  and  their  art  became  a  thing 
of  splendour  as  their  wealth  and  learning  and 
temporal  power  increased.  The  Cistercian  move- 
ment of  Robert  of  Molesme  and  Stephen  Harding 
and  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  was  a  revolt  against 
luxury  and  laxity,  an  attempt  (as  ever)  to  get 
back  to  the  supposititious  simplicity  of  earlier 
times,  and  in  the  success  that  followed  architec- 
ture changed  completely,  though  the  ending  of 
the  new  style,  and  even  its  consummation,  were 
different  indeed  from  what  the  Cistercian  re- 
forms had  desired. 


96  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

In  its  beginnings  Gothic  architecture  was  an 
attempt  at  economy,  the  trying  for  something 
less  massive  and  ornate  than  the  great  Benedictine 
piles  of  inert  masonry.  By  cleverly  developing 
a  system  of  balanced  thrusts,  the  sheer  bulk  of 
masonry  was  reduced  by  half,  while  attention 
was  drawn  away  from  the  fast-increasing  orna- 
mentation to  the  shell  itself,  whereby  a  great 
gain  was  effected,  and  architecture  became  once 
more  a  study  in  organism,  in  composition,  and 
in  proportion.  Gothic  is  primarily  the  perfection 
of  exquisite  organism,  almost  living  in  its  con- 
summate integrity  and  its  sensitive  interplay  of 
forces.  This  perfectly  co-ordinated  structure  is, 
of  course,  infused  and  transfigured  by  an  intense 
sense  of  beauty,  quite  new  in  its  forms,  and  given 
a  spiritual  and  symbolical  content  peculiar  to 
itself,  the  result  being  what,  for  want  of  a  better 
term,  we  call  Gothic.  The  two  elements  cannot 
be  disassociated,  as  pedants  feign,  for,  like  all 
great  art,  it  is  in  a  sense  sacramental,  and  the 
"outward  and  visible  sign"  may  never  be  sepa- 
rated from  the  "inward  and  spiritual  grace."* 

*  "  Sacramentum  est  corporate  vel  materiale  elementum  foris  sensibiliter 
propositum  ex  similitudine  reprsesentans,  et  ex  institutione  significans  et 
ex  sanctificatione  continens,  aliquam  invisibilem  et  spiritualem  gratiam." 
—(Hugo  de  St.  Victoire.) 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART      97 

Both  processes  may  be  followed  through  the 
great  sequence  of  churches  between  the  Seine, 
the  Marne,  and  the  Somme — or  might  have  been 
a  year  ago.  To-day  it  is  safe  to  postulate  nothing 
of  a  dim  and  ominous  future;  we  know  that  much 
of  this  galaxy  has  been  destroyed  after  seven 
centuries  of  careful  cherishing  through  innumer- 
able wars  and  revolutions.  That  all  may  go  is 
possible,  as  the  power  that  brought  them  into 
existence  has  gone,  though  in  this  case  only  for 
a  time.  Once,  however,  the  great  and  triumphal 
progress  from  Jumieges  through  Noyon,  Senlis, 
St.  Denis,  Laon,  Paris,  Amiens,  to  its  final  achieve- 
ment at  Reims,  was  a  complete  and  visible  record 
of  the  greatest  and  most  headlong  advance  toward 
the  real  things  in  Christian  civilisation  by  means 
of  the  real  things  in  Christian  civilisation  history 
has  ever  recorded.  Five  of  these — Senlis,  Noyon, 
Laon,  Amiens,  and  Reims  lie  either  within  the  bat- 
tle lines  that  have  maintained  themselves  so  long, 
or  at  least  within  sound  of  the  guns;  one  has 
been  destroyed — Reims;  one  thus  far  preserved — 
Amiens.  The  fate  of  the  others  is  in  doubt,  to- 
gether with  that  of  all  the  lands  that  lie  to  the 
east,  and  the  danger  of  irreparable  loss  is  greater 
than  ever  before  since  the  French  Revolution. 


98  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

There  was  no  better  place  than  this  once-lovely 
region,  now  hidden  from  view  in  the  lurid  smoke 
and  the  poisoned  fumes  of  a  new  and  demoniac 
sort  of  war,  in  which  to  watch  the  swift  growth 
to  a  splendid  self -consciousness  of  Gothic  architec- 
ture. The  elements  of  Gothic  organism  had  been 
developed  in  the  twelfth  century  by  the  great 
Cluniac-Norman  alliance,  but  this  was  only  a 
beginning;  Gothic  quality  was  still  to  be  achieved, 
and  this  consisted  largely  in  three  elements — co- 
hesion, economy,  and  character.  The  first  means 
the  synthetic  knitting  of  everything  together, 
and  the  giving  it  dynamic  power  to  develop  from 
within  outward;  it  means  making  structure  ab- 
solutely central  and  comprehensive,  but  also 
beautiful;  ornament,  decoration,  remaining  some- 
thing added  to  it,  something  of  the  bene  esse, 
though  not  of  the  esse;  deriving  from  it  in  every 
instance,  but  not  necessary  to  its  perfection.  The 
second  is  the  reducing  of  mass  to  its  logical  and 
structural  (and  also  optical)  minimum,  bringing 
into  play  the  forces  of  accommodation,  balance, 
and  active,  as  opposed  to  passive,  resistance. 
The  third  is  the  hardest  to  describe  or  determine, 
and  probably  can  only  be  perceived  through  com- 
parison. It  is  the  differentiation  in  quality,  the 


LAON 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART     99 

determination  of  personality,  and  it  is  hardly  to 
be  defined,  though  it  is  instantly  perceived. 

In  the  Abbaye  aux  Hommes,  or  Cerisy,  or  St. 
Georges  de  Bocherville,  we  find  great  majesty 
and  beauty,  many  elements  that  are  distinctive 
of  true  Gothic  work  and  persist  through  its  entire 
course,  but  none  of  these  buildings  is  actually 
Gothic.  In  St.  Germer  de  Fly,  however,  and  in 
Sens  and  Noyon,  while  there  seems  at  first  little 
differentiation  from  the  others,  the  Gothic  spirit 
has  found  itself  and  is  already  working  rapidly 
toward  its  consummation. 

Of  the  condition  of  Noyon  at  the  present  time 
we  know  little;  of  what  this  may  be  in  a  few 
months'  time  we  know  less.  The  town  itself  was 
of  the  oldest,  its  foundation  being  Roman,  and 
within  its  walls  Chilperic  was  buried  in  721,  while 
Charlemagne  was  crowned  King  of  the  Franks 
about  thirty  years  before  he  became  Emperor, 
and  Hugh,  first  of  the  Capetian  dynasty,  was  here 
chosen  king  in  987.  Incidentally,  the  town  was 
also  the  birthplace  of  John  Calvin.  The  ancient 
cathedral  was  burned  in  1131  and  the  present 
work  begun  shortly  after,  though  it  is  hard  to 
believe  that  much  of  the  existing  structure  ante- 
dates the  year  1150.  The  crossing  and  transepts 


100  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

date  from  about  1170,  the  nave  about  ten  years 
later,  while  the  west  front  and  towers  are  of  the 
early  part  of  the  next  century.  The  certainty 
and  calm  assurance  of  the  work  is  remarkable. 
Paris,  which  is  later,  is  full  of  tentative  experi- 
ments, but  there  is  no  halting  here,  rather  a 
serene  certainty  of  touch  that  is  perfectly  con- 
vincing. The  plan  is  curious  in  that  it  has  tran- 
septs with  apsidal  ends,  after  the  fashion  of 
Rhenish  Romanesque,  one  of  the  few  instances  in 
France.  The  alternating  system  is  used  through- 
out, and  the  vault  was  originally  sexpartite;  the 
interior  order  consists  of  a  low  arcade,  high  trifo- 
rium,  triforium  gallery,  and  a  clerestory  comprised 
wholly  within  the  vault  lines;  round  and  pointed 
arches  are  used  indiscriminately,  and  the  flying 
buttresses  are  perhaps  the  earliest  that  emerged 
from  the  protection  of  the  triforium  roofs.  In 
the  choir,  which  is  earliest  in  date,  the  ornament 
is  rude,  even  rudimentary,  though  distinctly 
Gothic  in  form,  but  in  the  nave  twenty  years  has 
served  to  change  this  into  work  of  the  most  bril- 
liant and  classical  beauty.  In  1293  the  whole 
town  was  destroyed  by  fire,  and  the  cathedral 
wrecked;  it  was  immediately  reconstructed,  how- 
ever, and  at  this  time  the  sexpartite  gave  place 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART  101 

to  quadripartite  vaulting,  while  the  west  front, 
with  its  great  towers,  very  noble  in  their  propor- 
tions and  their  powerful  buttressing,  was  com- 
pleted. This  rebuilding  and  the  loss  of  all  the 
original  glass  has  left  Noyon  less  perfect  than 
many  of  the  neighbouring  churches,  but  it  still 
remained  a  grave  and  strikingly  solemn  example 
of  the  transition. 

Not  far  away,  past  the  huge  and  formidable 
ruins  of  Coucy,  the  greatest  castle  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  whose  lords  haughtily  proclaimed,  "Roi  ne 
suys,  ne  prince,  ne  due,  ne  comte  aussi:  Je  suys 
le  Sire  de  Coucy,"  is  Laon  on  its  sudden  hill. 
How  great  the  loss  has  been  here  we  do  not  know, 
but  the  town  has  been  frequently  under  German 
bombardment,  and  the  end  is  not  yet.  Laon  is 
unique,  a  masterly  work  of  curious  vitality,  orig- 
inal, daring,  and  even  rebellious  against  a  growing 
tradition.  In  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  vastly 
admired,  but  to  us  of  a  day  more  dull  and  timor- 
ous in  architecture,  because  we  have  no  art  of  our 
own  and  have  found  so  little  in  life  from  which 
we  could  draw  an  inspiration,  it  is  less  safe  and 
satisfying  than  such  coherent  and  scholastic  work 
as  Amiens  or  Reims.  Begun  about  1165,  it  was 
finished  in  1225,  the  growth  being  from  the  cross- 


102  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

ing  in  all  directions,  for  not  only  is  the  amazing 
west  front  of  the  central  period  of  Gothic  per- 
fection, but  the  choir  as  well,  for  the  unique 
square  termination  takes  the  place  of  a  regular 
chevet  which  was  part  of  the  original  design. 
This  square-ended  choir  is  the  only  one  in  France, 
and  is  thoroughly  English  in  effect;  moreover, 
the  transepts  have  aisles  and  are  the  first  in 
France  to  be  so  finished,  while  they  have  tribunes 
at  the  ends  after  the  Norman  fashion,  and  there 
is  a  central  tower  or  lantern  as  well.  The  towers 
of  Laon  are  its  distinguishing  glory,  for  there  are 
five  in  all,  out  of  an  original  seven,  all  incomplete, 
not  one  retaining  its  spire,  but  striking  and  im- 
mensely individual.  The  interior  organism  is 
not  wholly  coherent,  for  while  the  vaulting  is 
sexpartite  throughout,  the  system  is  regular,  and 
was  as  manifestly  intended  for  quadripartite  vault- 
ing as  Noyon  for  sexpartite.  The  west  front  is 
vastly  picturesque,  if  somewhat  incoherent,  and 
is  clearly  a  growth  from  year  to  year;  it  lacks 
both  the  sublime  calm  and  grandeur  of  Paris  and 
the  faultless  organism  of  Reims,  but  its  detail  is 
as  brilliantly  conceived  as  any  in  France,  while 
its  carvings  and  sculptures  are  in  the  same  class 
as  the  best  of  Hellas.  In  the  tops  of  the  towers 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART     103 

are  the  well-known  stone  effigies  of  oxen,  placed 
there  by  the  builders  in  recognition  of  the  patient 
service  of  the  beasts  that  year  after  year  helped 
drag  the  heavy  stones  from  the  plain  to  the  top 
of  the  hill  where  the  cathedral  stands. 

In  and  around  Laon  were  once  innumerable 
religious  houses,  but  nearly  all  their  churches 
were  destroyed  during  the  French  Revolution, 
which  annihilated  more  noble  art  in  five  years 
than  had  happened  in  five  centuries.  St.  Martin 
remains,  and  is  of  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, but  the  church  of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Vincent 
is  wholly  destroyed. 

South  of  Laon,  and  about  as  far  away  as  No- 
yon,  lies  Soissons,  an  ancient  town,  famous  in 
history,  and  containing,  until  the  war,  another 
masterpiece  of  mediaeval  art,  the  cathedral,  which 
already  has  been  made  the  target  of  German 
shells,  and  has  suffered  seriously.  As  a  city,  it 
antedated  the  Roman  occupation,  was  Christian- 
ised toward  the  end  of  the  third  century,  became 
a  capital  of  the  Merovings,  and  a  notable  city  of 
the  Carolingian  dynasty.  The  south  transept  is 
the  oldest  part,  and  dates  from  about  1175,  the 
choir  was  finished  in  1212,  the  north  transept  and 
nave  about  1250.  Porter  says  of  the  south  tran- 


104  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

sept:  "This  portion  of  Soissons,  one  of  the  most 
ethereal  of  all  twelfth-century  designs,  is  the  high- 
est expression  of  that  fairy-like,  Saracenic  phase 
of  Gothic  art  that  had  first  come  into  being  at 
Noyon.  Like  Noyon,  however,  this  transept  lacks 
the  elements  of  grandeur  which  are  found  in  so 
striking  a  degree  in  the  nave  and  choir  of  this 
same  church  of  Soissons."  The  nave  and  choir 
are  indeed  amongst  the  noblest  creations  of 
Catholic  art;  for  justness  and  delicacy  of  pro- 
portions, refinement  of  line,  restraint  in  the 
placing  and  determination  of  ornament,  Soissons 
ranks  with  Chartres  and  Bourges.  The  richness 
of  its  vertical  lines  is  unusual,  the  mouldings  clear, 
powerful,  and  distinguished  in  contour,  and  alto- 
gether it  has  well  served  for  nearly  seven  cen- 
turies as  a  perfect  exemplar  of  the  Christian  art 
of  France  as  its  highest  point. 

Already  it  has  been  appallingly  shattered,  one 
shell  having  struck  the  roof  of  the  north  aisle, 
hurling  one  of  the  nave  shafts  into  fragments 
and  obliterating  an  entire  bay.  Thus  far  it  has 
been  spared  a  conflagration,  and  if  the  Prussian 
lines  are  promptly  forced  back,  it  may  still  be 
preserved  as  a  wonder  for  still  further  generations. 

So  far  as  the  numberless  other  great  churches 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART  105 

of  Soissons  are  concerned,  it  has  for  long  been 
too  late;  they  perished,  with  uncounted  others  in 
this  region,  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution.  Of 
the  vast  abbey  of  St.  Jean-des-Vignes  nothing  re- 
mains but  the  sumptuous  west  front,  cut  clear 
like  an  architectural  "frontispiece"  from  all  the 
rest,  and  even  this  has  been  further  shattered  by 
German  gunfire.  The  royal  abbey  of  Our  Lady 
has  become  a  military  barracks,  St.  Crepin,  St. 
Medard  with  its  famous  seven  churches,  all  have 
vanished,  and  the  loss  is  irreparable. 

Nearer  Paris  we  find  Senlis,  a  further  step  in 
architectural  development.  The  town  itself  is 
charming,  and  full  of  old  art  and  old  history. 
Roman  walls,  with  sixteen  towers,  still  remain, 
together  with  fragments  of  a  royal  palace  of  the 
French  kings,  from  Clovis  to  Henri  IV,  with 
ancient  houses,  picturesque  streets,  desecrated 
churches,  and  monastic  ruins,  such  as  those  of 
the  Abbey  of  Victory,  founded  by  Philip  Augustus 
after  the  battle  of  Bouvines,  and  wrecked,  of 
course,  during  the  Revolution. 

The  cathedral  is  curious  and  fascinating.  Set 
out  in  1155  on  enormous  lines,  it  was  curtailed 
both  in  height  and  length  through  the  failure  of 
adequate  funds.  It  has  been  rebuilt,  extended, 


106  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

supplemented,  century  after  century,  until  it  has 
become  almost  an  epitome  of  French  architecture 
from  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  to  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  The  southwest  tower  (its 
mate  is  unfinished)  is  of  the  thirteenth -century 
culmination,  and  surpassed  by  no  other  spire  in 
France  for  subtlety  of  composition  and  perfection 
of  detail.  One  of  its  crocketed  pinnacles  has  al- 
ready been  shot  away,  but  apparently  further 
danger  is  well  removed,  and  will  become  progres- 
sively less  threatening  as  the  Prussian  lines  are 
driven  back. 

It  is,  of  course,  quite  impossible  even  to  note 
all  the  architectural  monuments  between  the 
Seine  and  the  frontiers  of  Belgium.  Paris  must 
be  wholly  left  out,  for  St.  Denis,  St.  Germain 
1'Auxerois,  Notre  Dame,  and  the  Ste.  Chapelle 
would  justly  require  a  volume  to  themselves. 
Rouen,  with  its  cathedral,  St.  Ouen,  St.  Maclou, 
the  Palais  de  Justice,  rich  with  all  the  lace  and 
embroidery  of  the  flamboyant  period,  lies  now 
well  beyond  danger,  and  so  does  Beauvais,  where 
the  nemesis  of  worldly  pride  overtook  the  lagging 
spiritual  impulse  that  had  made  the  Middle  Ages 
the  climax  of  Christian  civilisation.  Chalons-sur- 
Marne,  once  threatened,  is  now  reprieved,  and  its 


BEAUVAIS 


THE  GLORY  OF  A  GREAT  ART  107 

cathedral,  its  churches  of  St.  Jean  and  St.  Loup, 
and  its  noble  and  distinguished  Church  of  Our 
Lady  are  safe  for  another  period. 

Apart  from  the  great  architectural  monuments 
are  numberless  others  invaluable  in  archaeology, 
and  forming  links  in  the  great  Gothic  develop- 
ment: St.  Etienne  of  Beauvais,  St.  Leu  d'Es- 
serent,  Morienval,  Bury,  St.  Germer,  and  St. 
Remi  of  Reims — the  last  valuable  beyond  esti- 
mate, with  an  apse  that  was  unparalleled  as  a 
masterpiece  of  transitional  work  when  Gothic  was 
in  its  first  and  finest  estate,  now  wrecked  and 
desecrated  by  shells  that  have  burst  its  vaults 
into  crumbled  fragments  and  hurled  its  perfect 
windows  in  showers  of  splintered  glass  to  the 
pavements  heaped  high  with  the  wreck  of  ma- 
sonry and  of  dismembered  altars. 

And  as  in  the  case  of  the  great  churches,  so  in 
that  of  the  small,  from  Braisne  to  Caudebec, 
they  cannot  even  be  catalogued.  The  whole  re- 
gion was,  and  is,  one  of  wonderful  little  parish 
churches,  of  all  periods,  and  many  of  them  are 
now  only  shapeless  ruins.  The  great  abbeys  and 
smaller  religious  houses  are  practically  gone,  scores 
having  fallen  prey  to  the  insane  fury  of  the  Revo- 
lution or  the  sordid  secularism  of  the  Restoration. 


108  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

What  we  have  lost  may  be  seen  from  countless 
such  lovely  and  pathetic  fragments  as  St.  Wan- 
drille,  near  Caudebec,  given  a  new  fame  through 
the  name  of  Maeterlinck,  and  so  linked  with  the 
greater  martyrdom  of  Belgium  in  these  last  days. 
This,  like  its  myriad  companions,  was  architec- 
ture of  the  most  singular  beauty,  the  loss  of  which 
leaves  the  world  poor,  so  poor,  indeed,  that  it  had 
at  first  nothing  wherewith  to  meet  the  last  assault 
of  the  enemy.  The  loss  is  being  made  good,  the 
penalty  already  is  paid,  and  though  one  could  not 
— one  would  not — restore  or  rebuild  these  silent 
fragments  of  exquisitely  wrought  stone,  meshed 
in  tall  trees  and  clambering  vines,  the  vision  is 
possible  of  new  foundations,  equal  in  number  to 
these  that  are  gone,  each  an  expiation  and  a 
spiritual  guard,  each  making  late  reparation  for 
the  past,  guaranteeing  a  future  immunity  from 
perils  of  the  same  nature  as  those  that  now  shake 
the  world. 


VI 

AMIENS  AND   REIMS 

TWO  monuments  there  are  to  the  east  of  the 
Seine  that  form  the  realisation  of  the  dim 
but  dominant  ideal  toward  which  Christian  so- 
ciety in  France  was  tending  even  from  the  days 
of  St.  Germer  and  Jumieges,  through  the  inter- 
mediate and  progressive  steps  of  Noyon,  Soissons, 
Laon- Amiens,  and  Reims.  Equal  in  fame,  count- 
ing no  others  in  their  own  category  save  only 
Chartres  and  Bourges,  the  one  remains,  the  other 
has  passed  for  ever. 

It  is  a  strange  sensation  for  us  to-day  to  watch 
from  afar  the  slow  and  implacable  destruction  of 
one  of  the  greatest  works  of  art  in  the  world,  for 
we  must  go  back  more  than  a  century  to  find  any 
catastrophe  of  a  similar  nature.  What  happened 
then,  when  half  a  hundred  masterpieces  of  divinely 
directed  human  intelligence  and  aspiration  were 
reduced  to  scrap-heaps  at  the  hands  of  revolution, 
is  very  far  away,  and  the  irreparable  loss  is  as 
unknown  to-day  as  it  was  unappreciated  then. 
We  can  no  more  reconstruct  for  our  understand- 

109 


110  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

ing  Cluny,  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  or  Avranches 
than  we  can  restore  the  catalogue  of  the  Alexan- 
drian library;  mercifully  we  cannot  estimate  our 
loss.  Back  of  this  era  of  annihilation  we  must  go 
two  centuries  before  we  find  in  England  under 
Henry  VIII  a  similar  episode  of  infamy.  The 
case  of  Reims  is  wholly  different;  there  are  tens 
of  thousands  who  knew  it  for  what  it  was — the 
crowning  manifestation  of  a  crowning  civilisa- 
tion, and  for  them  the  loss  is  personal,  poignant, 
and  unexampled,  a  horror  that  sophistry  cannot 
palliate  nor  time  destroy. 

Of  the  two  great  churches,  Amiens  could  more 
easily  have  been  spared.  The  word  is  ill  chosen; 
Amiens  in  ruins,  its  exquisite  fagade  with  its 
perfect  sculptures  seared  and  shattered  by  burst- 
ing shells  and  consuming  fire,  would  have  been 
a  catastrophe  that  could  only  put  to  the  test  the 
most  stoical  fortitude,  but — it  is  neither  Chartres 
nor  Bourges  nor  Reims,  and  simply  because  the 
perfect  balance  between  all  possible  elements  in 
great  architecture  is  here  trembling  toward  its 
overthrow.  Gothic  art  had  three  controlling 
forces  working  toward  an  unattainable  perfection; 
structural  integrity  irradiated  by  consummate  in- 
vention and  an  almost  divine  creative  genius; 


AMIENS  AND  REIMS  111 

passion  for  that  exalted  beauty  that  is  unchange- 
able and  eternal,  expressed  through  new  forms  at 
once  northern  and  Catholic;  the  just  balance 
and  intimate  interplay  of  these  two  impulses. 
Its  virtues,  like  all  virtues,  were  most  easily  trans- 
muted into  vices,  once  the  controlling  balance 
was  overthrown,  and  each  was,  in  its  stimulating 
possibilities,  a  constant  and  irresistible  tempta- 
tion toward  excess.  In  Reims,  the  beginnings  of 
which  antedate  Amiens  by  only  a  decade,  the 
balance  remains  true  and  firm;  in  Amiens  we  see 
the  first  fatal  steps  in  the  development  of  a  purely 
human  (and  notably  French)  logic,  toward  that 
intellectual  pride,  that  almost  arrogance  of  self- 
confidence,  that  found  its  nemesis  in  the  unstable 
marvel  of  Beauvais. 

In  an  admirable  but  anonymous  little  book 
called  "Some  French  Cathedrals,"  the  author 
says:  "French  Gothic  was  most  rational  and 
most  beautiful  while  it  still  remembered  its 
Romanesque  origin.  At  Amiens  it  was  just  be- 
ginning to  forget  that  and  to  lose  itself  in  dreams 
of  an  impossible  romance  which  changed  it  from 
architecture  into  a  very  wonderful  kind  of  or- 
namental engineering."  This  subtle  and  signif- 
icant change  you  feel  everywhere  except  in  the 


HEART  OF  EUROPE 

inimitable  fagade.  The  interior  is  too  high,  the 
masonry  too  wire-drawn  and  tenuous,  the  chevet 
too  giddy  and  insecure.  It  is  true  that  all  but  the 
west  front  has  been  impossibly  restored,  so  that 
outwardly  little  remains  of  the  original  work, 
while  the  glass  is  gone  from  all  but  the  ambulatory 
windows,  leaving  the  nave  a  cold  blaze  of  intol- 
erable light.  Nevertheless,  the  fundamental  fault 
is  there;  the  architect  intrudes  himself  in  place 
of  the  devot,  the  craft  of  man  supplants  the  guid- 
ing of  God ;  so  we  have  one  of  the  most  technically 
perfect  of  cathedrals,  and  one  of  the  least  inspired; 
you  must  go  to  the  Rhine  to  find,  in  Cologne,  a 
more  self-conscious  and  serenely  satisfied  work, 
and  it  is  well  to  make  this  comparison,  for  by  so 
doing  you  realise  the  real  greatness  of  Amiens, 
and  how  it  fails  only  in  comparison  with  the 
three  perfect  examples  of  an  art  that  wholly  ex- 
presses the  great  concept  of  mediaeval  Catholic  phi- 
losophy, that  in  life,  as  we  know  it,  material  and 
spiritual  are  inseparable,  that  their  just  balance  is 
the  true  end  of  man  in  this  phase  of  existence,  and 
that  therefore  sacramentalism  is  of  the  esse  of  re- 
ligion, and  as  well  the  law  of  life. 

As   a   whole,   both   from   within   and   without, 
Amiens  in  a  measure  fails,  but  this  does  not  hold 


AMIENS 


AMIENS  AND  REIMS  113 

of  its  several  parts.  The  west  front  is  still  a 
masterpiece  of  consummate  and  wholly  original 
design,  though  the  towers  have  been  incon- 
gruously (but  engagingly)  terminated  in  later 
centuries.  The  three  great  doors,  the  first  and 
second  arcades,  and  the  rose-window  story  con- 
tain more  brilliant,  spirited,  ingenious,  and  withal 
beautiful  design  than  any  similar  work  in  the 
world,  while  the  ornament  (there  is  a  wild-rose 
border  around  the  archivolts  of  the  great  porches 
that  finds  no  rival  in  Greece)  and  the  sculptures 
reach  a  level  of  decorative  and  emotional  signif- 
icance that  marks  the  time  of  their  production 
as  the  crowning  moment  in  human  culture  and 
in  Christian  civilisation. 

We  turn  to  Reims — we  turn  now  in  reverence 
to  the  memory  of  Reims — in  a  different  spirit. 
Master  Robert  of  Luzarches  was  a  master,  and 
knew  it.  Master  Robert  of  Coucy  was  the  servant 
of  a  Lord  who  was  greater  than  he,  and  knew 
this  also,  and  was  proud  of  his  service.  He  was 
just  as  great  an  architect  as  his  brother  of  Amiens, 
but  he  worked  in  a  godly  fear,  and  so  he  built 
the  noblest  church  in  Christendom.  This  is  not 
to  say  that  its  nave  order  is  equal  to  Chartres, 
its  rhythm  and  composition  equal  to  Bourges. 


114  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

In  every  great  church  from  1175  to  1225  there  is 
some  one  element  or  more  that  is  final  and  unex- 
celled, but  at  Reims  there  was  a  great  consistency, 
a  noble  and  all-embracing  competence,  that  placed 
it  in  a  class  by  itself. 

Reims  was  without  a  fault;  perhaps  this  made 
its  appeal  less  poignant  and  searching  than  that 
of  the  eager  and  sometimes  less-perfect  efforts  of 
men  more  human  in  their  inadequacies.  Man  is 
the  creature  that  tries,  and  it  is  perhaps  only 
human  to  feel  a  reverence  that  lessens  affection 
for  those  who  seem  to  transcend  the  limits  that 
are  set  to  human  accomplishment. 

Every  other  cathedral  in  France  is  a  splendid 
chronicle,  a  record  of  changing  times,  changing 
endeavours,  changing  impulses.  Men  of  varying 
personalities  have  wrought  out  their  ideals,  year 
after  year,  and  the  result  is  in  each  case  a  great 
sequence,  a  glorious  approximation.  Reims  was 
begun  in  1211,  on  the  first  anniversary  of  the 
burning  of  its  predecessor,  and  it  was  finished, 
manifestly  in  accordance  with  an  original  and  pre- 
determined design,  within  fifty  years.  The  three 
gables  and  the  upper  stories  of  the  western  towers 
are  a  century  later,  otherwise  the  work  is  con- 
sistent and  a  single  conception.  The  great  ideal 


AMIENS  AND  REIMS  115 

comprised  a  crowning  group  of  seven  towers, 
each  with  its  slender  spire,  none  of  which  was 
ever  completed,  and  had  this  majestic  scheme 
been  carried  out,  the  church  would  have  been  the 
most  complete,  as  it  was  the  most  perfect,  of  the 
architectural  manifestations  of  Christianity. 

It  is  impossible  to  analyse  Reims,  to  describe 
its  vital  and  exquisite  organism,  to  laud  its  im- 
peccable scale,  its  vivid  and  stimulating  original- 
ity, to  explain  the  almost  incredible  competence 
and  beauty  of  its  buttressing,  the  serene  delicacy 
of  its  detail,  to  dwell  once  more  on  the  glory  of 
its  sculpture  that  ranked  with  that  of  Greece,  on 
the  splendour  of  its  glass  that  was  rivalled  only 
at  Chartres.  It  is  impossible  to  do  this  now,  for 
its  passing  has  been  too  recent  and  too  grievous. 
Death  brings  silence  for  a  time  to  those  that 
knew  the  dead. 

In  another  chapter  I  have  tried  to  say  some- 
thing of  the  sculpture  of  Reims,  a  crowning  glory 
where  all  was  glorious,  but  sculpture  does  not 
mean  the  human  figure  alone;  it  covered  in  the 
Middle  Ages  all  forms  of  beauty  chiselled  out  of 
stone  and  marble,  and  the  man  who  wrought  the 
wild-rose  design  on  the  archivolts  of  Amiens  was 
just  as  great  an  artist  as  he  who  fashioned  the 


116  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Virgin  of  the  south  transept,  or  the  "Beau  Dieu"; 
perhaps  he  was  the  same  man.  Gothic  "orna- 
ment" is  quite  as  beautiful  as  are  Gothic  saints 
and  angels,  and  here  at  Reims  the  stone  carving 
was  of  the  finest.  Every  space  of  ornament — 
capital,  crocket,  boss,  frieze,  and  string-course — 
was  a  combination  of  these  great  elements:  archi- 
tectural self-restraint  and  identity  with  the  work 
as  a  whole,  passionate  love  for  all  the  beautiful 
things  in  nature,  joy  in  doing  everything,  even 
the  cutting  of  unseen  surfaces,  just  as  well  as  man 
could  do  the  work.  It  is  not  better  than  the 
ornament  of  Amiens  or  Chartres;  in  some  pas- 
sages Amiens  seems  to  have  achieved  the  highest 
attainable  point,  but  it  is  of  the  same  quality, 
and  that  is  enough  glory  for  any  church. 

Most  of  this  inimitable  art  already  has  been 
blasted  and  calcined  away,  and  the  same  fate 
has  overtaken  the  glass.  Here  was  an  achieve- 
ment of  the  highest  in  an  art  of  the  best.  In  the 
light  (literally)  of  the  stained  glass  of  our  own 
times,  we  had  found  some  difficulty  in  realising 
that  this  was  an  art  at  all,  but  it  needed  only  a 
visit  to  Chartres  or  Reims  for  enlightenment  to 
come  to  us.  At  Chartres,  in  the  very  earliest 
years  of  the  thirteenth  century,  it  reached  its 


REIMS 


AMIENS  AND  REIMS  117 

culmination;  there  is  no  greater  glass  anywhere 
than  this,  almost  no  greater  art,  and  Reims,  while 
less  complete  (the  aisle  windows  were  wholly  re- 
moved by  eighteenth-century  canons  on  the  score 
of  an  added  "cheerfulness")?  was  of  the  same 
school,  though  later  and  just  past  the  cresting  of 
the  wave.  If  it  lacked  the  unearthly  clarity  and 
divine  radiance  of  the  western  lancets,  and  the 
"Belle  Verriere"  of  Chartres,  it  had  qualities  of 
its  own,  particularly  its  most  glorious  azures  and 
rubies,  that  allowed  no  rival,  and  it  easily  ranked 
with  Chartres  and  Bourges  and  Poitiers  as  mani- 
festing the  possibilities  of  a  noble  art,  and  a  lost 
art,  at  its  highest  point  of  achievement. 

So  far  as  can  be  learned,  all  this  has  perished 
and  it  cannot  be  restored.  It  lies  in  shivered 
heaps  where  it  has  fallen  and  the  chapter  of  the 
glass  of  Reims  is  closed. 

Four  months  ago  the  ruin  already  was  irrep- 
arable, and  since  then  bombardments  have  been 
frequent  and  merciless,  nor  has  the  enemy  as 
yet  been  driven  beyond  the  range  of  gun-fire. 
Whether  even  the  shattered  and  crumbling  fabric 
— wherefrom  all  carving,  all  detail,  all  glass,  all 
sculpture  has  been  burned  and  blasted  away — 
survives  in  the  end,  none  can  foretell;  but  one 


118  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

thing  is  sure,  and  that  is  that  no  "restoration" 
must  ever  be  attempted.  If  enough  remains  so 
that  careful  hands  may  preserve  it  from  disin- 
tegration and  make  it  available  for  the  worship 
of  God,  well  and  good,  so  long  as  no  imitations, 
whether  in  stone  or  metal  or  glass,  are  intruded 
to  mock  its  vanished  glory  and  obliterate  for 
future  generations  the  record  of  an  indelible  crime. 
For  seven  centuries  its  beauty  and  its  perfection 
have  spoken  to  succeeding  generations,  each  less 
willing  to  listen  than  the  last.  In  its  ruin  and 
its  devastation  it  will  speak  more  clearly  and  to 
more  willing  ears,  than  in  any  pretentious  reha- 
bilitation. 

To  the  sordid  wickedness  of  its  destruction  has 
been  added  the  insult  of  Prussian  promises  of 
complete  restoration — a  catastrophe  that  would 
crown  the  first  with  a  greater  and  more  contempt- 
ible indignity.  Instead,  let  Reims  remain  as  it  is 
left,  and  then,  in  Paris,  let  France,  regenerated 
and  redeemed,  as  already  has  gloriously  happened, 
make  for  ever  visible  her  restoration,  through 
blood  and  suffering,  to  her  old  ideals,  by  carrying 
out  her  vow  to  build  in  honour  of  Ste.  Jeanne  d'Arc 
a  great  new  church,  raise  a  new  Reims,  like  the 
old  in  plan  and  form  and  dimensions.  Not  a  copy, 


AMIENS  AND  REIMS  119 

but  a  revival,  with  the  old  ideals,  the  old  motives, 
the  old  self -consecration;  different,  as  the  new 
must  differ  from  the  old,  but  akin  in  spirit  and  in 
truth. 

If  one  only  knew  how  to  interpret  it,  there  is 
some  mysterious  significance  in  the  centring  of 
the  war  of  the  world  around  Reims  and  in  the 
persistent  and  successful  efforts  of  the  Prussians 
to  raze  it  to  the  ground.  Seven  centuries  ago  the 
mystics  of  St.  Victor  would  have  read  the  riddle, 
but  for  too  long  now  we  have  been  out  of  temper 
with  symbolism  and  too  averse  to  the  acceptance 
of  signs  and  portents  to  be  able  to  see  even  dimly 
the  correspondences  and  the  significance  of  those 
human  happenings  that  are  actually  outside  hu- 
man control.  In  a  way  Reims  was  the  ancient 
heart  of  France,  as  Paris  is  not,  and  it  always  was 
a  sacred  city  above  all  others — and  sacred  it  is 
now  as  never  before.  It  was  here  that  the  Chris- 
tianising of  the  Franks  was  sealed  by  the  baptism 
of  Clovis,  A.  D.  496,  by  St.  Remi,  the  canonised 
bishop  who  occupied  the  see  for  seventy-five 
years.  The  crowning  of  kings  (every  sovereign 
but  four  for  a  period  of  fifteen  hundred  years 
came  here  for  his  coronation),  the  assembling  of 
great  councils  of  the  Church,  the  beneficent  ac- 


120  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

tivities  of  universities  and  schools  of  philosophy 
were  all  commonplaces  of  the  life  of  the  city, 
while  it  was  here  that  Ste.  Jeanne  d'Arc  finally 
discomfited  the  English  and  led  her  King  to  his 
crowning  in  the  church  that  is  now  destroyed. 

Time  and  again  the  city  has  been  devastated, 
from  the  Vandals  of  392  to  those  of  1914.  During 
the  Revolution  its  churches  suffered  bitterly;  the 
cathedral  and  St.  Remi,  until  then,  were  rich 
with  unnumbered  shrines,  altars,  statues,  tombs, 
while  cloisters  and  religious  buildings  of  many 
kinds  surrounded  them  on  all  sides.  All  this 
wealth  of  hoarded  art  that  expressed  the  piety  and 
culture  of  centuries  was  swept  away,  even  to  the 
sacred  ampulla  of  holy  oil,  piously  believed  to 
have  been  brought  by  a  dove  for  the  consecration 
of  Clovis  and  ever  after  miraculously  replenished 
for  each  succeeding  coronation.  To  this  irrepara- 
ble devastation  was  added  the  indignity  of  official 
"restoration,"  though  in  the  case  of  the  cathedral 
at  the  able  and  scrupulous  hands  of  Viollet-le- 
Duc,  and  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  picturesque 
and  beautiful  old  streets  gave  place  to  boulevards 
and  a  general  Hausmanising  on  approved  Parisian 
lines,  so  that  in  1914  the  city  had  become  dull  and 
somewhat  pretentious,  framing  the  two  priceless 


AMIENS  AND  REIMS  121 

jewels,  the  Church  of  Our  Lady  of  Reims  and  that 
of  the  holy  St.  Remi. 

All  is  now  gone,  the  glorious  and  the  insignif- 
icant alike  overwhelmed  in  indiscriminating  ruin. 
The  glass  and  the  statues  that  had  survived  war, 
revolution,  and  stupidity  are  shattered  in  frag- 
ments, the  roofs  consumed  by  fire,  the  vaults 
burst  asunder,  the  carved  stones  calcined  and 
flaking  hourly  in  a  dreary  rain  on  blood-stained 
pavements  where  a  hundred  kings  have  trod  and 
into  deserted  streets  that  have  echoed  to  the 
footsteps  of  threescore  generations.  The  city  has 
passed;  deleta  est  Carthago,  but  it  has  left  a  mem- 
ory, a  tradition,  and  an  inspiration  that  may 
yet  play  a  greater  part  in  the  rebuilding  of  civil- 
isation than  could  have  been  achieved  by  its  re- 
maining monuments  as  they  stood  making  their 
unheeded  appeal  on  the  day  the  first  shell  was 
fired  from  the  Prussian  batteries  on  the  eastern 
hills. 

The  tendency  I  have  spoken  of  which  showed 
itself  in  Amiens,  the  breaking  up  of  the  mediaeval 
integrity  and  a  consequent  inclination  toward 
undue  emphasis  on  structural  and  intellectual 
arrogance,  never  went  very  far  because  of  the 
ill  days  that  fell  on  France.  The  victory  of  the 


HEART  OF  EUROPE 

French  crown  over  the  Papacy,  with  the  result- 
ing transfer  of  the  Holy  See  to  Avignon,  was  the 
ruin  of  Catholic  civilisation  in  France,  as  well  as 
in  Italy  and  the  rest  of  Christendom.  The  Church 
became  subservient  to  the  state  and  progressively 
corrupt  in  root  and  branch.  The  wars  with  Eng- 
land resulted  in  nothing  less  than  ruin,  and  cul- 
ture and  art  came  to  an  end.  By  1370  building 
had  become  thin,  poor,  uninspired,  and  yet,  with- 
in the  next  ten  years  flamboyant  architecture 
appeared,  and  the  fifteenth  century  opened  with 
a  sudden  burst  of  artistic  splendour.  Heaven 
knows  what  it  all  means;  France  was  at  her  low- 
est depth,  and  yet,  without  warning,  a  regenera- 
tion took  place.  The  Blessed  Jeanne  d'Arc  ap- 
pears like  a  miraculous  vision,  Orleans  is  saved, 
the  rightful  king  is  crowned,  and  though  the  mar- 
tyrdom of  the  saviour  of  France  takes  place  in 
1430,  the  English  are  driven  out  in  1456,  and  a 
new  day  begins. 

Was  Jeanne  d'Arc  a  single  manifestation  of  a 
new  spirit  that  had  entered  society,  or  was  this 
itself  a  continuation  of  what  she  had  initiated 
under  God?  The  answer  does  not  really  matter, 
the  important  fact  is  that  a  great  regeneration 
took  place,  and  a  new  type  of  art  followed  in  its 


AMIENS  AND  REIMS 

wake.  Now  the  tendency  was  away  from  the 
proud  efficiency  of  a  glorified  architectural  en- 
gineering and  toward  the  other  element  in  archi- 
tecture, beauty  of  form  and  splendour  of  ornament. 
It  was  almost  as  though  the  French  had  turned 
to  religion  and  beauty  as  their  only  refuge  from 
the  miseries  of  their  estate.  In  the  very  first 
years  of  the  fifteenth  century,  at  the  darkest 
hours  of  France,  Notre  Dame  de  1'Epine,  close  by 
Chalons  on  the  Marne,  was  built  in  1419.  Caude- 
bec  in  1426,  St.  Maclou,  Rouen,  in  1432,  and 
after  these  for  more  than  a  century  France  aban- 
doned herself  to  the  creation  of  works  of  architec- 
tural art  that,  whatever  they  may  lack  of  the 
splendid  consistency  and  the  divine  serenity  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  are  nevertheless  amongst 
the  loveliest  works  of  man.  Beauvais  is  an  ad- 
mirable example  of  the  two  tendencies;  begun  in 
1225,  its  impossible  choir  was  finished  in  1272, 
only  to  collapse  twelve  years  later,  paying  the 
penalty  of  its  structural  arrogance.  For  forty 
years  it  was  in  process  of  reconstruction,  after 
a  more  conservative  fashion  though  of  its  original 
dimensions,  and  in  1500  the  transepts  were  be- 
gun and  finished  fifty  years  later.  In  beauty 
and  in  an  almost  riotous  richness,  they  are  the 


124  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

crowning  work  of  this  phase  of  design,  while  the 
choir  itself,  with  its  marvellously  articulated  sys- 
tem of  buttresses,  is  a  creation  of  sheer  architec- 
tural power  almost  unrivalled.  Ambitious  and 
defiant,  the  canons  now,  in  1550,  reared  a  vast 
spire  over  the  crossing,  nearly  450  feet  high,  and 
of  the  same  sumptuous  design  as  the  transepts. 
The  whole  stupendous  erection  fell  twenty-five 
years  later,  and  has  never  been  rebuilt,  while  the 
nave  was  never  even  begun;  so  Beauvais  remains 
a  vast  fragment,  and  a  living  commentary  on 
the  excesses  and  the  penalties  of  that  pride  of 
life  that  succeeded  to  the  spiritual  humility  of 
the  Middle  Ages. 

The  new  style,  however,  was  perfectly  adapted 
to  the  new  life  of  secular  supremacy,  and,  with 
few  exceptions,  both  here  in  eastern  France  and 
in  Flanders  and  Brabant  and  the  Netherlands, 
the  great  civic  monuments  and  the  innumerable 
chateaux  of  an  expanding  and  ripening  society 
are  couched  in  its  beautiful  and  elaborate  terms. 
Essentially  it  is  a  mode  of  ornament,  containing 
no  new  element  in  organism,  but  always  beau- 
tiful and,  in  France  at  all  events,  marked  always 
by  delicate  and  admirable  taste.  With  its  flame- 
like  tracery,  its  complicated  pinnacles,  its  scaf- 


AMIENS  AND  REIMS  125 

foldings  of  intricate  latticework;  with  its  curved 
and  aspiring  lines,  glimmering  niches,  pierced 
parapets,  open-work  spires,  and  its  tangled  foliage, 
dainty  filigree-work  and  sculptured  lace,  it  is  a 
marvel  of  imagination,  dramatic  sense,  and  con- 
summate craftsmanship.  Sometimes  it  is  strik- 
ingly competent  in  its  composition,  as  in  the  tran- 
septs of  Beauvais  and  the  front  of  Troyes,  the 
latter  being  in  its  unfulfilled  promise  (it  is  only 
a  beginning)  one  of  the  great  fagades  of  France, 
but  frequently  its  greatest  weakness  is  forgetful- 
ness  of  consistency  in  a  passion  for  beauty  of  line 
and  light  and  shade  that  became  almost  insane. 
With  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  the 
new  art  began  slowly  to  decay  in  ecclesiastical 
buildings,  but  it  continued  for  at  least  another 
hundred  years  in  chateaux  and  civic  work,  and 
it  is  this  in  particular  that  is  now  disappearing 
through  a  war  waged  by  unprecedented  methods 
and  in  accordance  with  principles  (if  we  may  call 
them  such)  which  hitherto  have  been  found  associ- 
ated only  with  barbarian  invasions  or  the  frenzies 
of  a  mad  anarchy  that  has  called  itself  Revolution. 
For  the  more  distinguished  chateaux  we  must 
go  outside  our  chosen  field,  to  the  Loire,  Touraine, 
or  to  other  parts  of  France  where  the  devastation 


126  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

of  past  wars  and  revolutions  is  less  complete. 
There  is  Pierrefonds,  of  course,  if  one  cares  for 
that  sort  of  thing,  but  of  authentic  castles  of  the 
sixteenth  century  there  are  few  of  notable  quality, 
though  many  minor  farms  and  manors  still  re- 
mained in  August,  1914.  Ecouen  and  Chantilly 
are  exceptions,  and  the  latter,  given  to  the  nation 
by  the  Due  d'Aumale  when  he  was  exiled  by 
the  republic  for  the  crime  of  belonging  to  the 
legitimate  line  of  kings,  is  a  good  example  of  the 
princely  buildings  of  the  Renaissance  when  the 
last  fires  of  Gothic  spirit  were  dying  away. 

It  is  not  so  long  ago  that  half  the  towns  in 
France  between  the  Seine  and  the  Belgian  fron- 
tier were  threaded  by  wonderful  little  streets  of 
stone-built  and  half-timber  houses  three  centuries 
old,  and  bright  with  squares  and  market-places 
framed  in  old  architecture  of  Francis  I  and  Henri 
II.  Their  quaint  and  delicate  beauty  was  too 
much  for  the  nineteenth  century,  however,  which 
revolted  against  an  old  art  as  it  revolted  against 
an  old  culture  and  an  older  religion,  so  nearly  all 
are  gone,  their  place  being  taken  by  substitutes, 
the  destruction  of  which  could  hardly  be  counted 
against  the  Prussians  for  unrighteousness,  if  one 
considered  aesthetic  questions  alone,  which  is,  for- 


AMIENS  AND  REIMS  127 

tunately,  impossible.  For  these  dim  old  streets 
and  sunny  silent  squares  one  could,  until  a  few 
months  ago,  go  confidently  across  the  border, 
finding  in  Flanders,  Brabant,  Liege,  and  Luxem- 
bourg relief  from  the  appalling  sophistication  that 
had  taken  possession  of  the  old  cities  of  Cham- 
pagne. Even  in  France,  until  last  year,  were 
Douai,  Pont-a-Mousson,  Meaux,  and  of  course 
Arras,  though  now  of  some  of  these  worse  than 
nothing  remains.  In  the  latter  city  was  once, 
also,  a  particularly  splendid  example  of  those 
great  civic  halls  that  showed  forth  the  pride  and 
the  independence  of  the  industrial  cities  of  the 
later  Middle  Ages,  and  another  stood  in  Douai. 
As  Flanders  and  Brabant  are,  however,  the  chosen 
places  for  this  particular  manifestation  of  an  in- 
dustrial civilisation,  so  different  to  our  own  in 
spirit  and  in  expression,  we  may  include  them 
therewith,  where  they  racially  and  historically 
belong;  and  having  followed  the  development  of 
an  essentially  religious  art  in  France  from  Ju- 
mieges  to  Beauvais,  note  its  translation  in  later 
years  into  civic  forms,  in  the  little  and  heroic 
Kingdom  with  so  great  and  heroic  a  history,  now 
and  for  many  months  shut  off  from  the  world 
still  free,  by  the  veil  of  smoke  and  poisoned  gases. 


VII 

THE    BURGHERS   AND    THEIR   BUILDING 


great  civic  halls  were  those  of  Aude- 
-••  naarde,  Brussels,  Louvain,  Malines,  Ter- 
monde,  Bruges,  Ghent,  Ypres,  and  Arras,  and  each 
of  these  cities  was  as  well  full  of  wonderful  old 
houses,  some  private  residences,  some  quarters  for 
the  various  guilds.  It  is  impossible  to  discrimi- 
nate between  past  and  present  tense  in  describing 
them;  some  are  wholly  gone,  as  Ypres  and  Arras, 
others  we  suppose  still  remain,  but  how  long  this 
may  be  true  one  cannot  say.  If  we  lose  what  we 
have  lost  in  the  onrush  of  a  victorious  army,  and 
in  its  long  holding  of  defensive  lines  in  the  most 
amazing  siege  in  history,  what  may  we  not  ex- 
pect at  the  hands  of  an  army  in  defeat,  fighting 
its  way  back  to  its  own  frontiers  for  a  last  des- 
perate stand?  Arras,  Ypres,  and  Louvain  were 
hard  enough  to  lose,  but  the  soul  shudders  at  the 
thought  of  Bruges  and  Ghent,  Antwerp  and  Brus- 
sels, fought  over  day  after  day  and  abandoned  to 
pillage  and  destruction. 

128 


THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING    129 

The  historical  significance  of  these  halls  is  very 
great;  they  put  into  material  (and  as  we  had 
thought  enduring)  form  the  oligarchical  democ- 
racy, the  great  wealth,  the  pride,  the  sumptuous 
and  lavish  spirit  of  successive  generations  of 
princely  merchants  and  manufacturers.  Religion 
was  still  a  vital  force,  but  it  no  longer  stood  alone, 
and  now  the  secular  organisations  of  guilds  and  free 
cities  claimed  and  received  the  tribute  of  wealth 
through  the  ministry  of  art.  It  was  not  the  old 
art  of  the  days  of  cathedral  building  and  the 
founding  of  abbeys  and  universities,  it  was  quite 
a  different  art  altogether,  but  it  fitted  the  new 
motives  and  ideals  as  the  other  could  not  do.  Of 
severity,  self-restraint,  reticence,  it  has  nothing; 
it  is  all  splendour  and  magnificence,  emulation  and 
rivalry,  but  it  is  still  craftsman's  art,  and  what- 
ever the  taste  of  these  great  and  even  fantastic 
buildings,  there  is  proof  of  joyful  workmanship 
and  of  a  jealous  maintenance  of  the  highest  pos- 
sible standards. 

Ypres  was  the  first  in  point  of  time,  and  first  in 
absolute  artistic  value.  Begun  by  Count  Baldwin 
in  the  year  1200,  it  was  remodelled,  rebuilt,  em- 
bellished for  a  hundred  years,  and  finally  the 
"Nieuwerke,"  of  the  most  abandoned  Renaissance 


130  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

taste,  was  added  to  the  east.  Of  huge  dimensions 
—the  main  front  was  four  hundred  and  thirty- 
three  feet  in  length,  while  the  great  tower  was 
two  hundred  and  thirty  feet  high — the  design  was 
as  simple,  imposing,  and  direct  as  one  would  ex- 
pect to  find  during  the  early  thirteenth  century. 
It  was  a  simple  parallelogram,  three  stories  high, 
nobly  arcaded,  with  ranges  of  fine  niches  which 
contained  statues  of  the  Counts  of  Flanders  and 
other  worthies,  until  these  were  completely  de- 
stroyed by  the  French  during  the  Revolution. 
A  vast,  high-pitched  roof  covered  all,  broken  in 
the  middle  by  the  belfry,  with  its  corner  turrets, 
which  were  echoed  at  the  four  corners  of  the 
building  by  similar  spires.  A  simpler  composi- 
tion could  hardly  be  imagined,  or  one  more  im- 
pressive in  its  grave  restraint.  Architecturally 
it  was  unique;  there  was  and  is  no  other  rival 
of  a  similar  nature,  and  its  value  was  inestimable. 
Bold  in  conception,  straightforward,  direct,  con- 
fident without  assurance,  it  was  one  great  master- 
piece of  the  civic  art  of  the  Middle  Ages,  mirac- 
ulously preserved  for  six  centuries  as  the  visible 
manifestation  of  the  supreme  quality  of  a  great 
people  and  a  great  art.  Both  without  and  within 
it  had  that  spontaneousness,  that  fine,  frank 


THE    DESTROYED    HOTEL    DE    VILLE   OF   ARRAS 


THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING     131 

naivete  that  one  finds  in  all  crescent  periods  and 
searches  for  in  vain  in  the  following  days  that 
history  always  selects  for  particular  admiration. 
Analyse  it  and  see  how  simple  it  all  was.  First 
there  were  three  chief  organic  elements:  the  great 
wall  unbroken  by  any  "features,"  without  but- 
tresses because  it  was  not  vaulted;  the  enormous, 
high-pitched  roof  bare  of  all  gables  or  diversions 
of  any  kind;  the  square,  unbuttressed  tower  in 
the  middle,  with  a  tall,  pointed  roof  and  cupola, 
surrounded  by  four  high  pinnacles  of  the  simplest 
form.  It  is  as  calm  and  simple  as  a  Greek  temple, 
and  like  this,  also,  it  is  final  in  the  perfection  of 
its  proportions  and  its  relation  of  parts;  also  its 
great,  quiet  elements  are  left  alone,  not  tortured 
into  nervous  complexity  of  varying  planes  and  ex- 
citable vagaries  of  light  and  shade.  Forty-eight 
pointed  and  mullioned  windows  along  the  main 
floor  give  the  horizontal  divisions,  while  vertically 
there  were  three  stages:  the  low,  lintelled  colon- 
nade, a  mezzanine  with  very  beautiful  traceried 
windows,  one  to  each  bay,  and  a  vast  main  wall 
without  horizontal  subdivisions  but  with  a  del- 
icately designed  and  very  broad  course  of  trace- 
ried panelling  above  the  splendid  sequence  of  great 
windows,  like  a  lofty  blind  parapet.  The  tower 


132  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

was  equally  simple,  its  seven  stories  exquisitely 
varied  in  their  heights  and  windowing,  but  calm 
always,  and  final  in  their  sense  of  exactly  felt  re- 
lations. The  pinnacles  also,  four  on  the  tower  and 
others  at  either  end  of  the  fagade,  were  as  simply 
and  perfectly  designed  as  could  be  asked,  without 
fantastic  exuberance  or  a  straining  for  effect; 
just  traceried  octagons  with  one  series  of  pointed 
gables  and  high,  crocketed  spires. 

The  "Nieuwerke,"  in  its  ridiculous  Renais- 
sance effrontery  snuggled  up  against  the  silent, 
absorbed,  unnoticing  giant,  was  like  an  architec- 
tural version  of  Merlin  and  Vivien;  silly  and 
scented  impudence  in  its  vain  approximations 
to  grave  dignity  and  a  self-respect  proof  against 
all  blandishments. 

The  great  hall  inside  was  just  the  same:  an  as- 
tonishing room,  four  hundred  and  thirty  feet  long, 
broken  only  by  the  columns  and  arches  bearing  the 
great  tower,  and  roofed  with  a  mass  of  oak  tim- 
bering like  an  ancient  and  enormous  ship  turned 
bottom  up.  Huge  oaken  beams  rose  against  the 
wall  dividing  it  into  panels,  and  each  pair  sup- 
ported equally  gigantic  tie-beams  braced  by  rough- 
hewn  diagonal  struts.  It  was  barn-building,  if  you 
like,  but  a  good  barn  is  better  art  than  a  Newport 


THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING    133 

"cottage";  and  this  splendidly  direct  "barn"  at 
Ypres  had  a  quality  the  Louvre  could  never 
attain. 

Each  panel  of  this  colossal  and  almost  in- 
terminable wall  was  destined  for  great  historical 
pictures,  most  of  which  had  been  completed,  and 
the  effect  was  majestical  in  its  combination  of 
colour  and  carpentry.  Of  it  all  nothing  now  re- 
mains, as  I  have  said,  except  a  single  turret  at 
one  end.  The  greatest  surviving  monument  of 
the  civic  architecture  of  the  Middle  Ages  has 
been  slowly  pounded  to  powder,  and  has  taken 
its  place  with  the  other  lost  masterpieces  of  a 
world  that  from  time  to  time  can  create  but 
can  somehow  never  retain  ability  to  enjoy  or 
even  to  understand.  Month  after  month  it  was 
the  special  target  of  Prussian  shells;  the  first 
breeched  the  wall  to  the  right  of  the  tower  and 
were  followed  by  others  that  started  fires  which 
swept  the  building  from  end  to  end,  consuming  the 
enormous  timbered  roof,  destroying  the  painted 
walls,  crumbling  the  tracery  of  the  tall  tower.  For 
a  time  the  burned-out  walls  remained,  and  Ger- 
man professors  spoke  gently  and  with  bland  re- 
assurance of  the  simple  task  of  restoration,  but 
this  last  indignity  has  ceased  to  threaten,  for 


134  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

recently  the  batteries  have  resumed  their  work; 
little  by  little  the  belfry  has  been  shot  away,  the 
fretted  arcades  have  been  splintered  into  road- 
metal,  and  now  at  last  the  destruction  is  com- 
plete; what  once  was  the  glory  of  Ypres,  the 
pride  of  Flanders,  the  delight  of  the  architect, 
is  now  only  a  heap  of  refuse  masonry,  with  one 
pinnacle  standing  alone,  accusing,  in  the  midst  of 
ruin  from  which  there  is  no  salvation,  for  which 
history  will  search  in  vain  for  shadow  of  excuse. 

In  sequence  of  time,  the  old  "Halles"  of  Ma- 
lines  come  next,  as  portions  of  them  date  from  1311, 
but  they  have  been  reconstructed  at  various  times, 
enlarged  in  several  styles,  and  in  the  end  were 
never  completed,  for  their  great  belfry  never  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  above  the  roof.  Nevertheless 
they  were  a  wonderfully  picturesque  and  even 
theatrical  composition  of  pointed  portals,  fan- 
tastic gables,  dormers,  and  turrets,  and  a  very  en- 
gaging epitome  of  five  centuries  of  architectural 
mutations. 

The  Hotel  de  Ville  of  Bruges  is  as  consistent 
and  perfect  as  Malines  was  casual  and  irrespon- 
sible. It  was  begun  in  1376,  the  corner-stone 
being  laid  by  Louis  de  Male,  and  if  there  is  any- 
where a  more  complete  example  of  civic  architec- 


BRUGES,    HOTEL    DE   VILLE 


THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING    135 

ture,  combining  the  restraint  and  the  simplicity 
of  early  Gothic  with  the  exquisite  ornament  and 
the  sense  of  decorative  beauty  of  the  latest  Gothic, 
it  is  not  of  record.  It  seems  to  come  at  the  mid- 
most point,  when  everything  met  together,  without 
loss  and  without  exaggeration,  for  the  production 
of  a  living  example  of  what  society  is  capable 
when  it  achieves  a  perfect,  if  unenduring,  equilib- 
rium. It  is  a  masterpiece  of  architectural  com- 
position, of  brilliant  and  supremely  intelligent 
design,  while  it  is  vivified  by  a  poetry  and  an  in- 
spiration that  exist  only  at  a  few  crowning  mo- 
ments in  history.  Even  now  it  is  one  of  the  love- 
liest buildings  in  Europe;  what  it  must  have  been 
once,  when  its  fifty  statues,  each  under  its  crock- 
eted  canopy  (they  also  were  pulled  down  and 
hammered  in  pieces  during  the  French  Revolu- 
tion), its  tracery,  balustrades,  and  pinnacles  were 
blazing  with  colour  and  gilding,  passes  the  imagina- 
tion. It  is  only  a  small  building  of  six  bays  sub- 
divided by  its  three  turrets  into  two  triple  groups 
with  a  doorway  in  each.  The  composition  is 
very  subtle  and  quite  original,  while  the  design 
is  emphasised  vertically,  there  being  no  hori- 
zontal members  which  run  through  from  end  to 
end,  though  the  levels  are  very  delicately  indi- 


136  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

cated  by  window  mullions,  niches,  panels,  traceried 
arches,  and  the  crowning  parapet.  It  is  one  of 
the  least  obvious  of  architectural  compositions 
and,  I  am  disposed  to  think,  one  of  the  best. 
While  it  lacks  the  Doric  simplicity  of  Ypres,  it 
has  a  sensitive  rhythm  and  a  richness  of  light  and 
shade  without  studied  intricacy  or  premeditated 
theatricalism  that  places  it  amongst  the  few  very 
perfect  works  of  art.  It  is  a  "poetic"  composi- 
tion in  the  highest  sense,  or  rather  it  is  akin  to 
music  of  the  mode  that  followed  the  Gregorian 
and  opened  up  new  possibilities  of  a  more  com- 
plex, if  no  more  poignant,  spiritual  expression. 
It  is  perhaps  the  most  perfect  single  piece  of 
architecture  in  Belgium,  and  if  it  is  extinguished 
in  the  night  of  Armageddon  we  lose  a  thing  of 
inestimable  value,  unequalled,  irreplaceable,  even 
as  we  have  lost  that  equally  inestimable  spiritual 
force  that  brought  it  into  existence. 

The  "Halles"  also,  with  their  famous  "Belfry 
of  Bruges"  are  a  particularly  noble  example  of 
the  same  period  of  artistic  supremacy,  though 
they  lack  consistency,  for  only  the  lower  stages 
of  the  amazing  tower  are  original,  this  portion 
of  the  work  being  completed  about  1296.  All 
the  upper  part  is  of  the  very  end  of  the  fifteenth 


THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING    137 

century,  and  the  octagonal  upper  stage  is  of  no 
high  order  of  design.  Once  this  also  was  crowned 
by  a  slender  spire  having  a  statue  of  St.  Michael 
sixteen  feet  high,  which  must  have  brought  the 
stupendous  erection  almost  to  a  height  of  five 
hundred  feet,  for  even  now  the  topmost  balustrade 
is  three  hundred  and  fifty-two  feet  above  the 
street.  Ten  years  after  the  spire  was  finished  it 
was  destroyed  by  lightning,  rebuilt,  destroyed 
again,  and  then  left  in  its  present  condition. 

Brussels  followed  Bruges,  and  its  huge  City 
Hall  was  begun  about  1404.  Compared  with 
Arras,  Bruges,  or  Louvain,  it  is  dry  and  somewhat 
unimaginative,  with  a  curious  modern  look  that 
may,  in  part,  be  due  to  very  drastic  restorations 
and  to  the  devilish  ingenuity  in  destruction  of 
the  French  Revolutionists.  In  the  beginning, 
however,  it  failed  in  subtle  proportions,  and  in 
point  of  composition  as  well.  Its  belfry,  grace- 
ful as  it  is,  is  thin  and  artificial  in  effect,  while 
the  fagade  is  formal  without  the  grave  majesty 
of  Ypres,  rich  without  the  sensitive  refinement  of 
Bruges  or  the  riotous  exuberance  of  Louvain. 
This  is  not  to  condemn  it  as  bad;  except  for  the 
supreme  qualities  of  the  three  monuments  last 
mentioned  it  would  stand  high  in  the  architec- 


138  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

tural  scale,  but  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  compari- 
sons, and  through  these  it  suffers,  perhaps  unjustly. 
Less  than  fifty  years  after  Brussels  came  Lou- 
vain,  and  so  far  as  good  art  is  concerned  the 
three-quarters  of  a  century  since  Bruges  has  not 
been  altogether  well  spent.  As  in  the  case  of  re- 
ligious architecture,  an  ungoverned  passion  for 
beauty  and  craftsmanship  has  resulted  in  the  de- 
struction of  the  sane  and  noble  balance  in  such 
churches  as  Reims,  such  civic  halls  as  Bruges  and 
Ypres,  while  nothing  is  left  but  an  almost  impos- 
sible luxuriance,  as  of  a  northern  flower  forced  in 
the  hot,  moist  air  of  a  greenhouse.  The  Hotel  de 
Ville  of  Lou  vain,  spared  by  some  inconsequent 
and  unnatural  whim  of  those  who  wrecked  all 
the  city  around  and  gave  over  the  priceless  li- 
braries of  the  university  to  the  flames,  is  one  of 
the  smallest  of  its  kind  in  Belgium;  it  is  only 
one  hundred  and  thirteen  feet  long,  forty-one  feet 
wide,  and  seventy  feet  to  the  level  of  its  parapet 
—about  the  dimensions,  let  us  say,  of  an  average 
New  York  dwelling  of  the  better  class.  It  is  less 
a  building  than  an  ornament — a  shrine,  a  taber- 
nacle for  the  sanctuary  of  a  cathedral.  You  feel 
that  you  want  to  take  it  up  and  polish  it,  you  re- 
gard it  as  you  do  an  ivory  carving  from  Pekin, 


THE    HOTEL    DE   VILLE  OF    LOUVAIN 


THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING    139 

and  so  considered  it  is  well-nigh  matchless,  but  it 
still  remains  outside  the  category  of  architecture, 
and  if  you  compare  it  with  the  Ste.  Chapelle,  you 
see  at  once  that  the  life  is  already  almost  gone 
from  a  great  art,  even  if  it  has  passed  for  the 
moment  into  a  supreme  kind  of  decoration. 

In  making  that  statement  one  is  led  unawares 
into  one  of  those  generalisations  that  contains 
less  than  half  the  truth.  The  life  had  indeed  gone 
from  the  larger,  the  official  architecture,  the  art 
of  the  Church,  of  the  commune.  After  this  there 
was  little  more  than  a  sorry  tale  of  rapid  degen- 
eration, until  the  French  and  the  Jesuits  came 
with  their  new  style,  either  clever  and  often  in 
good  taste  at  the  hands  of  the  secular  power,  or 
tawdry  and  rococo  when  popularised  by  the 
new  religious  order  that  was  the  first  incarnation 
of  that  "efficiency"  that  in  the  end  became  the 
obsession  of  the  world  and  the  root  of  the  war. 
It  is  true  that  the  new  fashion  rapidly  superseded 
the  dying  and  disintegrating  spirit  of  mediaeval- 
ism,  and  never  a  Bruges  town  hall  or  a  Malines 
cathedral  came  again;  instead  we  get  the  dull 
and  blundering  seventeenth-century  portion  of  the 
Ghent  Hotel  de  Ville  and  the  showy  and  very  vul- 
gar Jesuit  churches,  such  as  that  in  Antwerp  (at- 


140  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

tributed  to  Rubens)  and  the  Cathedral  of  Arras. 
On  the  other  hand,  and  this  is  too  often  forgotten, 
the  degradation  of  state  architecture  always  pre- 
cedes by  many  years,  sometimes  centuries,  the 
downfall  of  the  people's  art,  and  after  a  great  era 
of  high  character  and  cultural  attainments  the 
burghers  and  lesser  nobility,  the  farmers  and  mer- 
chants and  smaller  monastic  houses  continue 
instinctively  to  build  beautifully,  prolonging  the 
old  traditions,  unhampered  by  clever  architects 
and  the  commands  of  irresponsible  fashion,  until 
at  last  even  they  succumb  and  their  art  falls  to  the 
dead  level  of  the  stupid  artifice  that  for  long  had 
prevailed  amongst  the  great  of  earth. 

So  in  France  while  the  barbarities  of  the  Louvre 
were  being  perpetrated,  the  loveliest  little  cha- 
teaux and  farms  and  village  churches  were  rising 
almost  as  though  nothing  had  happened;  so  in 
Germany,  Heidelberg  and  Dresden  could  not  pre- 
vent the  Tyrol  and  Rothenbourg,  Hildesheim  and 
the  Black  Forest  and  the  Rhineland  from  creating 
the  eternally  delightful  timber  houses  that  far 
more  exactly  expressed  a  racial  quality  that  was 
to  endure  in  all  its  fineness,  until  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century  saw  its  ending  as  well.  So  in 
England,  Henry  VIII  and  Edward  VI  might  de- 


THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING    141 

stroy  the  then  vital  art,  and  Elizabeth  might  ex- 
punge its  very  memory,  building  ridiculous  semi- 
German  conceits  to  the  grief  of  the  judicious; 
nevertheless  the  deep-lying  tradition  prevailed 
outside  court  circles  and  those  of  the  Erastian- 
ised  Church,  and  the  sixteenth-century  domestic 
architecture  of  the  Cotswolds,  of  Surrey,  Suffolk, 
Norfolk,  and  Essex — indeed  of  almost  every 
county  in  England — was,  in  its  way,  just  as  good 
architecture  as  that  which  universally  prevailed 
before  the  "Great  Pillage." 

Precisely  the  same  thing  happened  in  Belgium, 
and  half  the  visual  charm  of  cities  such  as  Bruges, 
Tournai,  Termonde,  Ypres,  and  of  all  that  coun- 
tryside that  has  not  been  devastated  by  the  in- 
sane cult  of  coal  and  iron,  is  due  to  the  colloquial 
domestic  architecture  of  its  crooked  old  streets, 
its  wide-spread  market-places,  and  its  drowsy 
canals  and  winding  quays.  In  the  language  of 
the  schools  there  is  no  "architecture,"  properly 
speaking,  in  the  Quai  aux  Avoines,  or  the  Grand 
Beguinage,  or  the  old  almshouses  of  the  Abbaye 
de  St.  Trond  in  Malines,  along  the  banks  of  the 
Dyle  in  murdered  Louvain,  on  the  Quai  aux 
Herbes  in  Ghent,  the  market-place  in  Ypres,  the 
Quai  du  Rosaire,  and  the  Quai  Verte  in  Bruges. 


142  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

All  the  same,  in  the  simple  and  na'ive  houses  and 
hospitals  and  convents,  with  their  windows  and 
doors  where  they  are  wanted,  their  big  roofs  and 
gables  and  friendly  chimneys,  their  frank  use  of 
native  materials,  and  their  almost  unfailing  sense 
of  pleasant  proportions,  we  have  what  thus  far 
no  school  has  been  able  to  teach. 

In  the  earlier  work — early,  that  is,  for  domes- 
tic architecture,  say  of  the  sixteenth  century — 
while  there  is  great  individuality,  each  burgher  ex- 
pressing himself  and  his  own  tastes  to  the  full, 
there  is  a  very  courtly  regard  for  his  neighbours, 
and  a  curious  sense  of  restraint  in  the  light  of 
what  the  city  itself  might  expect  from  its  citizens. 
There  is  a  well-bred  uniformity  of  scale,  a  reti- 
cence in  detail,  a  total  lack  of  jealous  emulation 
that  speaks  well  for  the  self-respect  of  the  old 
builders.  Most  of  the  great  houses  of  the  pre- 
ceding century  are  gone,  either  razed  entirely  or 
mutilated  and  degraded  to  base  uses;  Bruges, 
for  example,  that  once  was  rich  in  sumptuous 
mansions  of  nobles  and  great  merchants,  has  now 
almost  none,  but  the  quays  of  Ghent  still  retain 
their  fine  rows  of  guild-houses  and  dwellings,  and 
until  a  year  ago  Ypres  once  had  them  also,  that 
are  models  of  fine  civic  architecture  (and  of  civic 


THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING    143 

spirit  as  well),  and  might  well  serve  as  such  to  a 
more  chaotic  and  unbalanced  generation.  They 
are  usually  three  stories  high,  with  three  more  in 
the  stepped  gables,  and  the  materials  are  gener- 
ally brick  with  trimmings  of  cut  stone,  though 
wood  was  frequently  used,  particularly  in  Ypres, 
and  always  in  the  most  consistent  and  joiner-like 
way.  If  there  were  no  other  test,  you  could 
always  tell  the  work  of  a  good  period  from  that 
of  a  bad  by  the  frankness  in  use  of  materials: 
brick  is  brick,  stone  is  stone,  and  wood  is  wood, 
and  there  are  no  shams,  imitations,  or  subter- 
fuges anywhere.  Whatever  the  land  produces, 
that  is  used  and  made  the  most  of,  while  the  style 
of  the  time  (mark,  not  the  fashion  of  the  hour  or 
the  fad  of  the  school  or  the  whim  of  the  artist)  is 
so  modified  as  to  adapt  itself  perfectly  to  these 
restrictions. 

It  is  not  until  the  Renaissance  that  the  cult  of 
deception  comes  in,  and  mutton  masquerades  as 
lamb,  while  silly  columns  and  pediments  are 
pasted  on  where  there  is  no  need  and  brick  is 
plastered  over  to  magnify  the  apparent  opulence 
of  the  owner.  It  is  at  this  same  time  that  a  mean 
individualism  appears,  and  each  builder  tries  to 
outface  his  neighbor.  The  Grande  Place  in  Brus- 


144  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

sels  is  a  good  example  of  this  new  selfishness,  and 
for  chaotic  originality  compares  almost  favourably 
with  a  city  street  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It 
is  all  very  amusing,  these  rows  of  serrated  slices, 
bedecked  with  mishandled  "orders"  and  crested 
with  miscellaneous  gorgeousness  on  the  lines  of 
the  sterns  of  the  proud  owner's  still  prouder  gal- 
leons, and  the  result  is  engagingly  theatrical  and 
fantastic,  but  it  is  a  grave  commentary  on  a  new 
civilisation  that  has  lost  in  culture  just  in  pro- 
portion as  it  has  increased  in  efficiency. 

It  is  dangerous  to  think  too  much  about  archi- 
tecture— or  any  art  for  that  matter.  The  thir- 
teenth century  was  supreme  in  its  achievement 
because  it  thought  so  much  about  religion  and 
character  and  getting  the  really  good  things  out 
of  life  that  for  reward  it  was  actually  inspired, 
and  so  probably  thought  as  little  about  its  art 
as  it  did  about  eugenics;  being  quite  content  to 
do  the  things  it  was  impelled  to  do  by  an  im- 
pulse for  which  it  was  not  consciously  responsible 
and  which  it  made  little  effort  to  control.  The 
Renaissance  thought  so  much  about  art,  as  well 
as  about  its  own  thoughts  (which  didn't  matter 
anyway),  that  even  in  its  best  work  there  is  an 
opulent  self-consciousness  that  defeats  its  own 


THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING    145 

ends  and  has  issue  at  last  in  a  self-conscious 
opulence  that  is  the  nadir  of  culture.  These 
builders  of  Flanders  and  Brabant  and  Artois  and 
Luxembourg  and  the  Rhineland  thought  as  little 
about  art  as  their  very  different  followers  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  they  certainly  lacked  the 
divine  inspiration  that  made  Reims  superhuman, 
as  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Lionardo  da  Vinci 
and  Shakespeare  were  superhuman,  but  the  old 
instinct  for  beauty  had  not  been  burned  and 
hammered  out  of  them  by  coal  and  iron,  or  re- 
versed into  an  unintelligible  jargon  (like  the 
Lord's  Prayer  said  backward)  by  an  insolent  in- 
tellectualism  and  a  mordant  secularism;  and  so, 
even  when  they  used  pseudo-Renaissance  forms 
in  their  cheerful  and  humorous  fashion,  they 
managed  to  produce  work  that  has  a  certain 
quality  that  the  best-educated  architect  of  this 
century  of  efficient  training  cannot  contrive  to 
obtain  in  spite  of  all  his  labours. 

And  in  any  town  that  had  been  left  alone  during 
the  nineteenth  century,  particularly  in  Bruges, 
as  well  as  in  many  of  those  the  Prussians  have 
destroyed,  everything  seems  to  fall  into  pictur- 
esque and  beautiful  compositions  that  are  the  de- 
spair of  modern  planners  and  "improvers"  of 


146  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

cities.  Here  again  the  results  were  quite  unpre- 
meditated. You  cannot  imagine  the  builders  of 
the  Gruuthiise  in  Bruges  carefully  arranging  their 
effects  of  gables  and  turrets  and  mullioned  win- 
dows with  scrupulous  regard  to  the  soaring  tower 
of  Our  Lady's  Church;  you  cannot  imagine  the 
wealthy  burghers  who  from  time  to  time  reared 
the  varied  structures  along  the  canal  and  the 
Quai  du  Rosaire  or  in  the  Rue  de  1'Ane  Aveugle 
(the  names  are  as  joyful  as  the  architecture)  or 
around  the  Pont  du  Beguinage,  working  studiously 
for  their  dramatic  effects  with  square  and  triangle, 
tentative  models,  and  perhaps  the  able  advice  of 
a  "Landscape  Architect"  or  a  "Scenic  Artist." 
If  they  had  done  this  they  might  have  produced 
a  tolerable  stage-setting  or  even  a  superior  sort 
of  world's  fair,  but  they  would  not  have  built 
Bruges. 

No,  the  conviction  has  been  growing,  and  is 
now  forced  on  us  by  a  revealing  war,  that  even 
in  the  seventeenth  century  there  were  those  who 
possessed  a  civilisation  and  a  culture  beside  which 
ours  is  a  kind  of  raw  barbarism;  that  they  by 
force  of  this,  and  with  the  aid  of  a  tradition  of 
still  greater  days  in  the  past,  built  by  instinct  as 
we  cannot  build  by  erudition;  and  that  what- 


THE  BURGHERS  AND  THEIR  BUILDING    147 

ever  issued  from  their  hands  was  admirable  and 
honourable  and  lastingly  fair.  It  is  well  for  us  to 
remember  sometimes  when  we  amuse  ourselves 
by  discourse  as  to  "inalienable  rights  of  man," 
and  that  sort  of  thing,  that  there  is  one  such  over 
which  no  argument  is  possible,  and  that  is  the 
right  to  beauty  in  life  and  thought  and  environ- 
ment, and  that  those  who  filched  this  from  us 
during  the  century  and  a  half  just  passed  (and  for 
the  first  time  in  history)  were  tyrants  and  robbers 
of  the  same  stamp  and  degree  as  their  immediate 
predecessors,  who  destroyed  the  other  right  of  man 
to  free  and  joyful  labour  as  well  as  that  to  the  gen- 
uine self-government  and  the  sane  and  wholesome 
democracy  that  marked  the  Middle  Ages  and  van- 
ished with  the  despots  and  the  dogmas  of  the  Re- 
naissance; not  to  return,  so  far  as  we  ourselves  can 
perceive  of  our  own  experience. 

God  grant  we  may  retain  what  is  still  left  us 
in  Flanders  and  Brabant.  If  by  the  triumph  of 
coal  and  iron  either  through  war  or  (perhaps 
even  worse)  through  the  imposition  on  terri- 
tories thus  far  spared  of  the  ideals  and  methods 
of  an  efficient  industrialism,  we  lose  Bruges  as 
we  have  lost  Ypres  and  Arras  and  Malines  and 
Termonde,  as  we  had  already  lost,  though  in  a 


148  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

different  way,  Liege  and  Lille,  Mons  and  Namur, 
then  by  so  much  (and  it  is  very  much)  have  we 
lost  our  hidden  leaven  that  in  the  fulness  of  time 
we  rely  on  for  the  lightening  of  the  whole  dull 
lump  of  our  misguided  and  now  discredited  life. 


VIII 

COAL  AND   IRON 

ACROSS  the  face  of  Europe  stretched  a  great 
scar,  even  before  the  war;  a  scar  that  reached 
from  Picardy  and  Artois  across  Brabant  and  the 
Rhineland  far  into  Westphalia.  It  was  an  open 
wound,  creeping  gangrenously  outward,  and  yearly 
involving  more  and  more  of  what  once  was  healthy 
and  fair  in  its  progressive  putrefaction.  It  was  an 
area  of  darkness  that  had  taken  the  place  of  light; 
of  burrowings  far  down  in  the  earth  where  men 
(and  women  and  children  once)  grubbed  dully 
and  breathlessly  for  poor  wages  on  which  to  sus- 
tain life,  life  that  was  mostly  the  same  dull  grub- 
bing above  the  surface  as  below.  It  was  a  place 
of  warfare  between  an  immemorial  verdure  of 
trees  and  flowers  and  grass,  clear  streams  and 
pure  air  and,  on  the  other  hand,  ever-growing 
heaps  of  slag  and  ashes  and  scoriae,  of  fat  smoke 
and  noxious  gases.  In  place  of  old  churches  and 
quiet  monasteries,  of  farms  and  flocks  and  forests, 
of  delicate  cMteaux  and  vine-clad  old  ruined 
castles,  of  sleepy  towns,  of  winding  streets  full  of 

149 


150  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

carved  and  gabled  houses,  grass-grown  market- 
places, still  canals  under  their  arched  bridges, 
ancient  trees  and  forgotten  gardens,  with  now 
and  then  a  vast  and  mysterious  church  built  out 
of  many  ages  and  crowded  with  old  memories 
and  the  aroma  of  spent  incense  and  vanished 
prayers — in  place  of  this  impractical,  inefficient, 
and  very  admirable  old  land  of  a  hundred  years 
ago,  had  come  a  great  noise,  a  greater  activity, 
and  a  remarkable  diminution  of  enduring  re- 
sults. The  churches  had  been  despoiled  by  the 
Huguenots,  wrecked  by  the  Revolutionists,  and 
either  sold  for  cash  or  restored  out  of  pure  delight 
in  wickedness,  coupled  with  a  conceit  that  only  ac- 
companies the  profoundest  ignorance.  Monstrous 
piles  of  brick,  iron,  and  cement  had  blistered 
the  land,  while  the  woods  and  fields  were  scored 
and  tangled  by  railway-lines,  tram-lines,  telegraph- 
lines.  Machines  everywhere,  under  and  on  and 
over  the  earth;  noise,  oil,  gas,  smoke,  chemicals 
mingled  in  the  making  of  a  new  civilisation,  and  the 
old  was  both  forgotten  and  denied.  It  was  a  place 
where  Efficiency  was  god,  and  his  First  Com- 
mandment was  lawfully  obeyed;  where  old  virtues 
were  transmuted  through  exaggeration  and  over- 
emphasis into  new  sins,  where  souls  shrivelled, 


COAL  AND  IRON  151 

brains  atrophied,  manners  ceased,  that  ten  might 
amass  wealth  they  could  not  use,  at  the  expense 
of  a  thousand  who  had  claimed  only  a  competence. 

A  land  of  coal  and  iron,  and  of  what  coal  and 
iron  can  produce.  Not  happiness,  not  character, 
not  culture;  neither  philosophy,  nor  religion,  nor 
art.  Machines — appalling  and  ingenious  com- 
plications of  wheels  and  cogs  and  valves  and 
pistons,  that  made  more  of  their  kind,  together 
with  unheard-of  engines  of  death  and  mutilation. 
And  factories — emplacements  for  machines  that 
roared  and  vibrated  endlessly,  spinning,  weav- 
ing, fabricating  night  and  day,  turning  out  what 
the  world  needs,  but  craftily  fashioning  it  so  it 
would  not  last,  or  what  the  world  does  not  need, 
but  that  lasted  only  too  long.  Turning  out 
wealth,  ugliness,  hatred,  power,  ignorance,  and 
revolt.  A  land  of  coal  and  iron,  black  and  poten- 
tial as  the  first;  hard,  inhuman,  irresistible  as 
the  last. 

The  Heart  of  Europe  has  produced  many  things 
in  its  time,  dynasties,  empires,  crusades;  religious 
energy,  new  philosophies,  industrial  revolutions, 
immortal  art.  Three  eras  have  owed  it  much: 
that  of  Charlemagne,  that  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
that  of  the  Renaissance-Reformation.  Perhaps, 


152  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

after  all,  the  latest  is  its  greatest  debtor,  and 
for  its  culmination  in  that  civilisation  of  irrelig- 
ion,  intellectualism,  materialism,  and  unhampered 
force  that  is  riding  now  for  its  fall,  it  may  be 
that  the  self-destructive  energy  has  issued  from 
Lille,  Maubeuge,  and  Charleville,  from  Liege  and 
Charleroi,  from  Crefeld  and  Essen,  Eschweiler  and 
Elberfeld. 

The  Black  Country  of  England,  the  southern 
counties  of  Wales;  Pittsburgh,  Chicago,  Paterson, 
Lawrence,  Manchester;  cities  innumerable  in  Great 
Britain  and  America,  have  joined  in  the  great  act 
of  creating  a  new  ideal  and  a  new  power,  but  the 
culmination  that  is  its  own  antidote  did  not 
manifest  itself  there;  instead  it  seems  now  to 
have  developed  in  the  raw  scar  across  the  face 
of  Europe,  and  the  malignant  pustule  that  has 
burst  at  last  formed  itself  at  the  far  eastern  end. 
Here,  in  the  Rhineland  and  Westphalia,  grew 
monstrously  the  wealth,  the  potency,  and  the 
material  force  that,  made  operative  by  the  cold 
philosophy  and  the  supreme  efficiency  of  Prussia, 
have  made  possible,  and  even  inevitable,  the 
supreme  attempt  to  bring  to  an  end  the  out- 
worn and  discredited  ideals  and  methods  of  ten 
centuries  of  Christian  civilisation,  and  establish 


COAL  AND  IRON  153 

in  unquestioned  supremacy  the  ideals  and  the 
methods  that  have  fought  hiddenly  for  dominion 
in  Charleroi  and  Essen,  in  Leeds  and  Birmingham, 
in  Pittsburgh,  Chicago,  and  New  York. 

Coal  and  iron.  When  the  first  bituminous 
lump  blazed  unexpectedly  on  the  hearth  of  the 
amazed  cottager,  the  iron  that  had  been  man's 
servant  for  so  long,  stirred  in  its  first  waking  to 
mastership,  a  mastery  achieved  at  last,  incredible 
in  its  degree,  incredible  in  its  potentiality.  Crea- 
tures of  its  own,  and  allies  brought  into  being 
before  or  since,  but  now  taking  a  new  force  and 
applied  with  new  motives,  gunpowder,  steam, 
electricity,  join  with  it  in  plausibly  offering  their 
services  as  beneficent  agents  toward  the  anni- 
hilating of  life;  and,  as  agent  and  controller  of 
the  vast  hegemony,  wealth,  desired  above  all 
things,  powerful  beyond  all  things,  after  many 
days  "Lord  of  the  World." 

Nations  and  men  have  tried  for  world-mastery, 
time  out  of  mind,  relying  on  brute  strength  of 
muscle,  on  craft  of  brain,  on  indomitable  will, 
and  everlasting  fear.  Have  tried  and  failed — 
after  a  little — and  the  empires  of  Alexander, 
Caesar,  Charlemagne,  Louis,  Philip,  Napoleon 
have  crumbled  and  become  a  memory.  Failure 


154  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

was  inevitable  for  strength  of  arm,  of  brain,  of 
will,  was  not,  and  could  not  be  made,  exclusive 
possession  of  any  race  or  people,  nor  could  terror 
be  confined  within  territorial  limits;  in  the  end 
revolt;  the  rising  of  new  tribes,  intrusion  of  fear, 
weakness,  degeneration  amongst  the  victors,  their 
ominous  evanishment  from  amongst  the  con- 
quered. 

But  how  now,  with  these  new  aids,  these  un- 
tried forces  and  potentialities?  Suppose  that 
the  unestimated  energy  of  a  million  years,  stored 
in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  be  applied  to  the  dull 
iron  and  to  the  harnessing  of  the  mysterious 
electrical  force,  under  the  stimulus  of  Will  eman- 
cipated from  the  hampering  influence  of  a  dis- 
credited religion  and  a  superstitious  ethic;  sup- 
pose a  new  demiurge  be  created,  given  supreme 
direction  over  soul  and  mind  and  body,  and 
named  Efficiency,  and  suppose  for  two  generations 
the  energy  employed  blindly  and  to  no  con- 
sistent end  by  dull  nations,  half-hearted  in  their 
devotion  and  still  bound  by  the  memory  of  dying 
creeds  and  moribund  old  morals,  be  applied  by  the 
highest  and  most  self-sacrificing  intelligence  to  the 
creation  of  a  supreme,  perfect,  and  absolutely  co- 
ordinated engine  that,  at  the  well-conceived  mo- 


COAL  AND  IRON  155 

ment,  shall  be  brought  to  bear  without  pity  and 
without  pause  on  the  inferior  nations  of  the  globe. 
What  then? 

The  answer  is  still  withheld,  for  the  trial  is  in 
process.  It  was  a  magnificent  conception,  and 
inevitable,  for  the  great  sequence  of  spiritual  and 
material  happenings  that  has  followed  from  the 
first  weakening  of  Christian  civilisation  and  Cath- 
olic culture  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  fourteenth 
century  was  bound  to  have  issue  in  its  logical  and 
dramatic  crest,  and  in  the  final  test  of  its  efficiency. 
There  is  nothing  half-way  in  its  effort,  nothing  in- 
differently accomplished  or  insecure  at  any  point. 
Essen,  Wilhelmshaven,  Berlin  have  forgotten  noth- 
ing, failed  in  nothing.  Every  material  agency, 
potential  on  the  earth  and  under,  has  been  de- 
veloped, harnessed,  and  applied;  every  hampering 
stumbling-block  of  an  old  righteousness,  an  old 
religion,  an  old  philosophy  is  removed;  coal, 
iron,  steam,  electricity,  chemistry  are  built  up 
into  a  great  and  puissant  unity,  made  operative 
by  the  wealth  they  themselves  have  created  and 
energised  by  the  dynamic  force  of  intensive  in- 
tellect no  longer  hampered  by  fear  of  God  or 
charity  for  man,  or  an  ancient  sense  of  honour 
that  came  out  of  feudalism,  the  Crusades,  and  a 


156  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Church  that  held  the  state  in  thrall  and  should 
have  perished  with  the  things  she  had  made. 

The  mystery  of  the  "Sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  the  mystery  of  "Antichrist"  are  mys- 
teries no  longer,  but  clear  writings  on  an  open 
page;  blazing  words  on  the  walls  of  the  banquet 
hall  where  the  feast  has  broken  up  in  sudden  and 
searching  terror. 

Coal  and  iron.  These  territories  are  now  the 
centres  of  greatest  conflict:  Poland,  Galicia,  and 
the  Scar  of  Europe  in  the  west.  Each  is  the  land 
of  coal  and  iron.  In  the  east  the  contest  sweeps 
back  and  forth  in  Poland  to  rob  Russia  of  her 
mines  and  manufactures,  and  add  them  to  the 
resources  of  Germany;  in  the  south  to  preserve 
to  Austria  the  coal  and  iron  and  oil  of  Galicia; 
in  the  west  to  gain  from  France  the  coal  and  iron 
of  Champagne,  Artois,  Picardy,  as  the  coal  and 
iron  of  Belgium  were  gained  in  the  beginning  at 
the  price  of  paper  treaties  and  a  negligible  honour, 
or  to  deprive  Germany  of  the  coal  and  iron  that 
are  the  foundations  of  her  empire  (actual  and 
potential)  in  the  Rhineland  and  Westphalia.  Was 
there  any  drama  of  Sophocles,  Euripides,  Shake- 
speare, Goethe  that  matched  the  sombre  theat- 
ricalism  of  life  itself  ?  Here  in  the  west,  far  back 


COAL  AND  IRON  157 

in  the  Middle  Ages,  was  the  first  great  centre  of 
manufacture  and  trade,  Bruges,  Ghent,  Arras, 
great  cities  and  world  markets  when  London  was 
a  little  river  town,  Paris  a  village,  Berlin  a  fron- 
tier fort  on  the  raw  edge  of  a  savage  and  heathen 
Prussia.  Then  later,  after  this  first  (and  dif- 
ferent) industrial  civilisation  had  passed,  came 
a  new  manifestation,  and  from  Lille  to  Essen  ap- 
peared the  materialisation  of  a  new  madness, 
while  Bruges  and  Courtrai  and  Aix  were  for- 
gotten, with  all  they  stood  for,  and  other  centres 
grew  up — black,  roaring,  uncouth,  but  for  men 
admirable  and  desired  far  beyond  the  restored 
churches  and  desecrated  abbeys,  the  schools  and 
universities,  the  dim  and  discredited  philosophies, 
the  decaying  art  and  the  vanished  ideals  of 
Fecamp  and  Reims,  of  Bruges  and  Louvain,  of 
Aix  and  Treves  and  Cologne.  And  now  the  Frank- 
enstein monster  gets  him  to  his  perfect  work,  and 
through  the  coal-fields  and  over  the  forges  and 
factories,  where  he  was  fashioned,  spreads  death, 
devastation,  and  ruin  that,  nevertheless  (and  here 
the  mystery  and  the  wonder  increase),  may  yet 
bring  redemption,  release,  and  restoration. 

What  has  been  in  the  immediate  past  needs 
no  description:    Crefeld  and  Lille  are  only  Man- 


158  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

chester  and  Pittsburgh,  and  their  familiarity  is 
sufficient  to  itself.  What  is  now  is  equally  com- 
mon to  all,  and  Louvain,  Arras,  and  Reims  in  their 
blood-stained  ruin  are  a  part  of  the  common  con- 
sciousness. Meanwhile  there  were,  and  for  the 
moment  are,  other  cities  and  other  regions,  for- 
gotten or  endured,  that  are  all  Charleroi  is 
not,  or  Crefeld  or  Maubeuge,  and  they  are  well 
worth  a  study,  partly  for  what  they  are,  partly 
for  what  they  signify,  partly  for  what  they  may 
forecast  for  a  future  beyond  the  present  cata- 
clysm. 

There  is  hardly  a  more  absorbingly  interest- 
ing portion  of  France,  historically,  artistically,  or 
picturesquely,  than  that  wonderful  quadrilateral, 
Compiegne-Noyon-Laon-Soissons,  with  its  three 
great  cathedrals;  its  finest  castle  ruin  in  France — 
Coucy,  the  pride  of  Enguerrand  III — its  fine  old 
towns,  as  Laon  and  Noyon,  with  their  groves 
and  terraced  paths;  its  great  Forest  of  Compiegne; 
and  only  a  few  miles  away  on  one  hand  or  the 
other,  chateaux  such  as  Coucy  and  Ham,  battle- 
fields of  the  significance  of  Crecy.  It  is  all  fought 
over  now  and  may  be  again;  no  one  knows  how 
much  is  left,  or  may  be  left  by  and  by,  but  it  was 
a  fair  land,  with  many  traces  of  a  more  spacious 


COAL  AND  IRON  159 

and  balanced  past,  not  in  its  great  churches  alone 
but  as  well  in  its  quiet  villages  and  its  fine  grey 
houses  in  old  cities.  A  frontier,  in  a  way,  for 
already  the  creeping  desolation  of  industrialism 
had  reached  close,  working  always  down  from 
the  North  of  coal  and  iron,  already  absorbing  St. 
Quentin  and  involving  its  ancient  architecture  in 
smoke  and  traffic,  blotting  out  its  streets  of 
gabled  houses,  and  turning  it  into  a  typical  manu- 
facturing centre — this,  that  was  once  the  dowry 
of  Mary  Stuart. 

North  we  enter  into  a  general  darkness,  but  on 
our  way  toward  the  dim  old  cities  of  Flanders 
and  Brabant  that  hold  even  now  the  beauty  of 
an  elder  day,  forgotten  by  the  world  and  outside 
the  area  of  "great  natural  resources,"  we  may 
pause  in  spirit  in  Arras  (it  would  not  be  well  to 
be  there  in  body,  unless  one  were  a  soldier  in  the 
army  of  the  Allies,  when  it  would  be  perilous  but 
touched  with  glory)  for  sight  of  an  old,  old  city 
that  gave  a  vision,  better  than  almost  any  other 
in  France,  of  what  cities  were  in  this  region  at 
the  high-tide  of  the  Renaissance.  It  is  gone  now, 
utterly,  irremediably,  and  the  ill  work  begun  in 
the  Revolution  and  continued  under  the  empire, 
when  the  great  and  splendid  Gothic  cathedral 


160  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

was  sold  and  utterly  destroyed,  has  been  finished 
by  Prussian  shells. 

Capital  of  Artois,  it  had  a  vivid  and  eventful 
history,  reaching  back  to  pre-Roman  times,  con- 
tinuing under  Baldwin  of  the  Iron  Arm,  who  be- 
came the  first  Count  of  Arras;  then  being  halved 
between  the  Count  of  Flanders  and  the  King  of 
France;  given  by  St.  Louis  to  his  brother  Robert, 
passing  to  the  Counts  of  Burgundy,  reverting  to 
Louis  de  Male  of  Flemish  fame,  abandoned  to 
the  Emperor,  won  back  by  France;  then  ac- 
quiring the  sinister  distinction  of  having  pro- 
duced Robespierre  and,  finally,  coming  now  to 
its  end  at  the  hands  of  the  German  hosts.  What 
Arras  must  have  been  before  the  Revolution  we 
can  only  guess,  but  with  its  glorious  cathedral, 
its  Chapelle  des  Ardents,  and  its  "Pyramid  of 
the  Holy  Candle"  added  to  its  surviving  town 
hall  with  its  fantastically  beautiful  spire,  and  its 
miraculously  preserved  streets  and  squares  lined 
with  fancifully  gabled  and  arcaded  houses,  it 
must  have  been  a  sanctuary  of  old  delights.  The 
cathedral  was  of  all  styles  from  the  twelfth  to 
the  sixteenth  century,  while  the  chapel  and  the 
"pyramid,"  were  models  of  mediaeval  art  in  its 
richest  state.  Both  were  destroyed  by  one  Lebon, 


COAL  AND  IRON  161 

a  human  demon  and  apostate  priest,  who  or- 
ganised a  "terror"  of  his  own  in  his  city  and  has 
gone  down  to  infamy  for  his  pestilential  crimes. 

Both  the  destroyed  monuments  were  votive 
offerings  in  gratitude  to  Our  Lady  for  her  mi- 
raculous intervention  in  the  case  of  a  fearful 
plague  in  the  twelfth  century,  the  instrument  of 
preservation  being  a  certain  holy  candle,  the 
melted  wax  from  which  was  effective  in  preserv- 
ing the  life  of  all  it  touched.  The  pyramid  was 
a  slender  Gothic  tabernacle  and  spire,  ninety 
feet  high,  standing  in  the  Petite  Place,  a  master- 
piece of  carved  and  painted  and  gilded  sculptures, 
unique  of  its  kind.  Every  vestige  has  vanished 
except  a  few  relics  preserved,  together  with  that 
most  precious  memorial,  the  blood-stained  rochet 
of  St.  Thomas  a  Becket,  in  the  modern  cathedral 
which  Berlin  has  just  announced  has  been  com- 
pletely and  intentionally  destroyed  by  gun-fire. 

Until  its  recent  destruction,  Arras  was  one  of 
the  few  territorially  French  towns  in  this  region 
that  could  and  did  take  one  back  into  the  at- 
mosphere of  the  pre-coal-and-iron  era  of  Europe, 
though  with  a  difference.  The  fine  vigour  and 
riotous  life  of  the  Renaissance,  the  gaiety  and 
spontaneousness  of  medisevalism  were  gone,  with 


162  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

the  colour  and  gold  of  the  carved  and  painted 
shrines  and  houses,  the  fanciful  costumes,  the 
alert  civic  life;  and  instead  was  a  grey  shadow, 
a  slowly  dissolving  memory.  Still  the  pale  simula- 
crum could  stimulate  the  imagination,  as  the  rose 
jar  renews  the  memory  of  the  rose.  Now  the 
jar  is  shattered  and  the  scented  leaves  are  trod- 
den in  the  red  mire,  and  we  must  make  our  way 
across  the  frontier  if  we  are  to  find  and  enjoy 
what  once  Arras  could  in  a  measure  give.  God 
grant  we  may  always  be  able  to  do  so,  and  that 
Audenaarde  and  Tournai,  Bruges  and  Malines, 
and  Courtrai,  with  the  still  little  villages  in  be- 
tween, may  remain  to  us  after  coal  and  iron  have 
achieved  their  perfect  work  and  been  replaced 
in  that  position  in  life  to  which  it  pleased  God 
to  call  them,  so  surrendering  the  more  dominating 
place  to  which  man  had  called  them  in  his  turn. 
Of  Ypres  and  Dixmude  it  is  better  to  say  h'ttle. 
Of  the  first  of  these,  and  its  vanished  glory,  the 
solemn  and  single  great  Cloth  Hall,  I  have  said 
an  inadequate  something,  but  there  was  also  St. 
Martin's,  once  a  cathedral,  with  its  delicate  type 
of  Gothic,  its  rich  Renaissance  woodwork,  its 
tombs  and  screens  and  treasures  of  ecclesiastical 
art;  there  were  its  old  guild-houses  and  its  quaint 


COAL  AND  IRON 

dwellings,  carved  and  gabled  and  with  wonderful 
old  brickwork.  And  in  Dixmude  there  was  the 
Church  of  St.  Nicholas  with  its  jube,  or  rood- 
loft,  as  gorgeous  a  piece  of  flamboyant  art  as 
one  could  find  anywhere  in  Belgium  or  France. 
All  this  is  gone,  but  a  little  farther  on,  behind  the 
present  battle  lines,  are  more  wonderful  cities 
still — or  are  at  this  writing,  in  July,  1915. 

This  little  Flanders,  from  the  Scheldt  to  the 
sea,  was  a  veritable  garden  of  dreams.  Nieuport, 
Furnes,  Ypres,  Dixmude,  Courtrai,  Tournai, 
Bruges,  Ghent,  Audenaarde — all  are  haunted  by 
infinite  old  memories,  and  most  of  them  have 
preserved  their  souls  through  seclusion  and  com- 
mercial oblivion,  but  around  and  between  lie 
endless  little  villages  of  delicate  old  houses,  grey 
Gothic  churches  that  have  not  been  secularised 
or  abandoned  (for  Flanders  always  was  a  Catholic 
country),  gardens,  slow  canals  and  brooks  under 
their  low  stone  bridges,  and  an  ingratiating  quiet 
that  gives  the  lie  to  the  progressive,  practical, 
efficient,  and  wealthy  strip  of  inordinate  activity 
that  "disquieteth  itself  in  vain"  from  Lille  to 
Liege  through  Mons  and  Courcelles,  Charleroi 
jind  Namur. 

As  the  old  names  come  forward  again  in  rumours 


164  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

and  reports  from  the  front,  in  death  lists  and 
hideous  narratives  of  outrage  and  destruction, 
indestructible  memories,  dormant  for  thirty  years, 
take  form  and  shape  again,  and  daily  the  gentle 
charm  of  a  forgotten  land  becomes  living,  and 
the  dull  fear  of  an  unpredicable  and  sinister  fu- 
ture grows  more  ominous  and  intense.  There  is 
no  other  land  quite  like  it;  no  place  where  the 
old  has  been  spared  by  the  new  to  such  a  degree, 
and  where  the  old  has  remained  so  altogether 
lovely. 

Of  course  Bruges  is  the  Holy  of  Holies  in  this 
sanctuary  of  lost  ideals,  but  on  the  way  stop  to 
consider  the  outer  ring  of  a  better  kind  of  for- 
tresses that  circle  her  inner  citadel. 

Nieuport,  Dixmude,  and  Ypres  once  held  their 
stations  from  the  sea  to  the  Lys,  but  their  ram- 
parts and  bastions  were  not  proof  against  the 
siege-guns  of  Essen  and  they  have  fallen.  Next 
to  the  east  and  farther  down  the  Lys,  is  Courtrai, 
under  whose  walls  in  1302  was  fought  that  battle 
of  the  burghers  of  Flanders  against  the  French, 
when  1,200  of  the  flower  of  French  knighthood, 
not  to  speak  of  the  men-at-arms,  were  slain,  and 
600  golden  spurs  were  gathered  from  the  field 
and  hung  in  triumph  in  the  abbey  church. 


A   CHIMNEY-PIECE    FROM    COURTRAI 


COAL  AND  IRON  165 

Once  a  great  city,  Courtrai  had  recovered 
something  of  its  ancient  wealth  and  activity,  but 
this  had  injured  it  less  than  one  might  suppose, 
and  it  was  still  a  fair  town,  with  many  trees  and 
gardens,  and  its  air  of  pride  in  a  fine  past.  There 
were  many  churches,  confused  in  their  sequent 
styles,  but  full  of  charm,  with  rich  screens  of 
Gothic  lace  work,  old  wall  paintings,  and  in  one 
—Notre  Dame — Vandyck's  "Elevation  of  the 
Cross,"  a  great  picture  in  every  way.  Then  there 
was  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  late  Gothic  of  the  kind 
that  lingered  so  long  in  Flanders  after  it  had  per- 
ished elsewhere,  with  sumptuous  chimneypieces  of 
fantastic  carvings  and  crowded  statues,  and  finally 
the  matchless  old  bridge  with  its  three  round 
arches  and  its  enormous  towers  at  either  end  with 
their  high  extinguisher  roofs;  altogether  a  good 
old  town,  so  self-respecting  and  sane  that  it  could 
achieve  a  new  prosperity  without  sacrificing  its 
old  ideals. 

South  of  Courtrai  lies  Tournai,  on  either  side 
the  Scheldt,  the  last  outpost  of  an  old  culture 
against  a  new  civilisation,  for  beyond  lies  Le 
Borinage,  the  Great  Scar,  where  none  would  ven- 
ture unless  under  compulsion.  Like  Courtrai  it 
holds  its  own  bravely  against  coal  and  iron,  pre- 


166  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

serving  its  fine  old  buildings,  and  largely  con- 
fining itself  to  its  traditional  weaving  and  em- 
broidery, much  of  which  is  still  the  product  of 
hand-looms  and  deft  fingers.  All  day  the  black 
coal  barges  slide  down  the  river,  coming  from 
the  inner  darkness  to  disappear  in  the  outer  dark- 
ness, leaving  the  city  itself  clean  and  sweet,  but 
prosperous  withal,  and  manifesting  a  tendency 
toward  boulevards  that  prompts  both  regret  and 
apprehension. 

An  ancient  capital  of  the  Merovings,  a  great 
city  in  the  fifteenth  century,  four  times  the  size 
of  such  struggling  communities  as  London,  be- 
sieged from  time  to  time  by  pretty  much  every 
state  or  faction  of  North  Europe,  Tournai  is  full 
of  pregnant  records  of  every  age  for  fifteen  cen- 
turies. Toward  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury the  grave  of  King  Childebert  himself  was  dis- 
covered, containing  innumerable  remains  of  royal 
7estments  and  regalia — three  hundred  golden  bees 
Tom  his  dalmatic,  medals,  coins,  portions  of  a 
sceptre,  sword,  axe,  javelin,  together  with  the 
great  seal-ring  of  the  King  himself  and,  as  well, 
vestiges  of  the  skeleton  and  trappings  of  his  war- 
riorse,  killed  and  buried  with  him.  Unfortunately 
these  precious  relics  were  seized  and  taken  to 


COAL  AND  IRON  167 

Paris,  where  most  of  them  were  later  stolen  and 
never  recovered.  It  was  from  the  gold  bees,  how- 
ever, that  Napoleon  derived  his  idea  of  sub- 
stituting this  emblem  for  the  traditional  lilies  of 
France.  Now  the  lilies  are  faded  and  the  bees 
are  dust,  but  a  resurrection  is  possible  for  either, 
and  out  of  the  war  one  or  the  other  may  come  to 
a  new  day — or  will  both  yield  to  the  Rampant 
Lion  from  a  blood-stained  and  forever-glorious 
flag,  blowing  now,  though  in  exile,  amongst  the 
banners  of  Europe,  equal  in  dignity  and  first  in 
honour  ? 

The  Cathedral  of  Our  Lady  of  Tournai  is  far 
less  known  than  its  peculiar  importance  and  its 
peculiar  beauty  demand.  It  is  a  curious  accre- 
tion and  plexus  of  styles,  from  the  middle  of  the 
eleventh  to  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
with  an  incongruous  but  beautiful  rood-screen 
of  the  Renaissance.  Cruciform,  and  of  great  size 
(425  feet  in  length),  it  has  the  apsidal  transepts  of 
the  Rhenish  style,  each  with  its  columned  ambu- 
latory; a  central  tower  with  high  pointe'd  roof, 
also  Rhenish  (and  English)  and,  as  well,  four  slim 
surrounding  towers,  two  to  each  transept,  as  at 
Laon,  where  they  are  not  all  complete,  and  at 
Reims,  where  they  never  rose  above  the  nave  cor- 


168  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

nice.  All  this  is  in  a  fine,  strong,  simple,  round- 
arched  transition  style,  far  superior  to  anything  on 
the  Rhine,  and  at  least  equal  to  Noyon  and  Paris. 
The  four  tall  towers  are  equal  in  size  and  general 
design,  but  run  from  a  consistent  Romanesque  to 
a  straightforward  Gothic  in  detail,  the  effect  being 
particularly  vital  and  interesting.  The  enormous 
choir  of  late  and  very  delicate  mediaeval  design, 
having  been  begun  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  thir- 
teenth and  finished  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  is  one  of  the  few  Gothic  things  one  re- 
grets, for  while  it  is  very  beautiful  in  itself,  it  has 
eliminated  what  was  probably  a  strikingly  effective 
Romanesque  choir,  while  its  towering  mass  crushes 
all  the  rest  of  the  church  and  makes  it  a  rather 
shapeless  composition. 

The  cathedral  has  suffered  constantly  and  at 
the  hands  of  many  kinds  of  unscrupulous  vandals. 
The  "Reformers"  in  the  sixteenth  century  pil- 
laged it  and  wrecked  its  gilded  shrines  and  its 
ancient  glass;  the  Revolutionists  continued  the 
dread  work  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  a  hun- 
dred years  later  blundering  efforts  to  reinforce 
it  by  crude  masses  of  masonry  were  succeeded  by 
equally  blundering  efforts  at  restoration.  It  has, 
however,  preserved  and  gathered  together  many 


COAL  AND  IRON  169 

treasures  of  Catholic  art,  including  chasubles  of 
St.  Thomas  a  Becket,  Flemish  tapestries,  ivory 
carvings,  embroidered  altar  frontals,  metal  work, 
and  mediaeval  missals. 

There  are  many  other  fine  old  churches  in 
Tournai — St.  Jacques,  St.  Quentin,  St.  Nicholas, 
St.  Brice — all  with  elements  of  interest,  while  the 
ancient  Cloth  Hall  contains  a  most  valuable  col- 
lection of  mediaeval  art-work  of  all  kinds,  and 
the  older  streets  still  preserve  fine  dwellings  and 
guild-houses  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  early  Renais- 
sance. 

Audenaarde  is  all  old,  and  it  lies  some  five  and 
twenty  miles  down  the  slow-winding  Scheldt  on 
its  roundabout  and  unhurried  way  to  Ghent  and 
Antwerp  and  the  sea.  Once  also  it  was  a  great 
city,  now  it  is  a  village  of  six  or  seven  thousand 
souls,  for  it  has  fortunately  never  recovered  its 
prosperity  under  the  new  and  unhandsome  con- 
ditions that  marked  the  nineteenth  century,  as 
happened  in  the  case  of  Brussels  and  Antwerp 
and  Ghent.  In  earlier  days  it  was  famous, 
like  Arras,  for  its  tapestries,  and  many  of  those 
exquisite  fifteenth-century  masterpieces  that  are 
now  exiled  in  alien  museums  where  they  do  not 
belong,  but  where  at  least  their  value  is  appre- 


170  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

elated  and  estimated  at  almost  their  weight  in 
gold,  came  from  its  looms.  Tapestries  are  made 
here  no  more,  nor  in  any  other  place,  for  their 
art  was  of  a  peculiar  subtlety  that,  even  if  it  finds 
appreciation  amongst  stray  connoisseurs  and  cura- 
tors, is  as  far  beyond  the  powers  of  the  present 
day  and  generation  as  the  glass  of  Chartres  or 
the  sculptures  of  Reims.  Linen  and  cotton  weav- 
ing and  the  brewing  of  beer  have  taken  the  place 
of  tapestries  in  Audenaarde,  but  the  old  town  it- 
self is  little  harmed  thereby. 

From  the  large  and  pious  and  opulent  days  of 
the  later  Middle  Ages,  there  remain  in  Audenaarde 
a  very  splendid  great  hall  and  two  equally  great 
churches  of  rather  unusual  value.  The  hall  is  early 
sixteenth  century,  very  rich  and  equally  graceful, 
with  a  slender  tower  and  spire,  ending  in  a  great 
crown  as  did  the  now-shattered  tower  of  Arras. 
Its  rooms  are  very  splendid,  with  big  carved 
chimneypieces  of  the  most  elaborate  design,  and 
with  its  small  size  and  scrupulous  detail  it  ranks 
with  Bruges  and  Arras  and  in  advance  of  the 
more  ambitious  creations  of  Brussels  and  Ghent. 

The  two  remaining  churches  of  Audenaarde,  Ste. 
Walburga  and  Notre  Dame,  have  much  distinc- 
tion and  architectural  value,  particularly  Notre 


COAL  AND  IRON  171 

Dame,  which  was  Cistercian  and  is  a  surprisingly 
pure  example  of  the  reserved  and  ascetic  Gothic 
which  always  marked  the  buildings  of  this  order — 
which  it  largely  created  as  a  matter  of  fact.  Ste. 
Walburga  is  quite  different,  with  its  Romanesque 
choir  of  very  modest  proportions,  its  ambitious 
and  overshadowing  nave  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  its  unfinished  transepts  showing  where  the 
great  scheme  of  rebuilding,  undertaken  when  it 
was  too  late  and  religion  was  already  a  waning 
force,  had  been  abandoned.  There  has  been  too 
much  restoration  in  the  case  of  all  these  works 
of  admirable  art,  and  the  ancient  atmosphere  is 
pretty  well  gone,  but  they  are  noble  still,  in  spite 
of  the  nervous  and  mechanical  attentions  of  archae- 
ologists and  architects  and  other  well-meaning  but 
misguided  people. 


IX 

A   TALE   OF   THREE   CITIES 

STILL  farther  to  the  north,  at  the  confluence 
of  the  Scheldt  and  the  Lys,  is  Ghent,  the 
proud  and  turbulent  metropolis  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  city-state  that  was  so  preposterously 
democratic  it  could  never  get  along  with  its  neigh- 
bours, nor  even  with  itself;  the  city  of  De  Con- 
ninck  and  Breidel  and  the  Van  Artevelds,  of  sud- 
den and  heroic  courage,  of  irresponsible  turnings 
from  one  side  to  the  other,  and  a  characteristic 
vacillation  in  public  policy  that  kept  it  always  in 
hot  water  and  was  in  the  end  its  undoing;  the 
place  of  strange  old  churches  and  wonderful 
houses;  the  shrine  of  marvellous  pictures  and  one 
of  them  perhaps,  what  it  has  been  called,  the 
greatest  picture  in  the  world. 

To  Ghent,  over  which  lay  for  centuries  the 
oblivion  that  came  upon  all  the  cities  of  Flanders 
after  they  lost  their  independence  and  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  unscrupulous  princes  and  states 

of  the  Renaissance,   one  following  another  with 

172 


A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES  173 

variety  of  oppression  but  no  cessation  thereof, 
has  come  a  new  vitality.  It  is  as  great  a  city  now 
as  then,  counting  a  population  of  well  over  £00,- 
000,  while  Bruges  has  no  more  than  a  quarter  of 
this  number.  Providentially,  it  has  suffered  less 
than  might  have  been  feared  by  this  accession 
of  prosperity;  its  wonderful  churches  and  tall 
towers,  its  quays  with  their  serried  lines  of  high 
gabled  houses,  its  great  castle  of  the  Counts  of 
Flanders,  its  winding  streets  and  tortuous  ca- 
nals lined  with  ancient  and  lovely  dwellings  and 
spanned  by  little  stone  bridges,  all  tell  even  now 
for  almost  their  full  value;  and  though  the  pity 
is  quite  metropolitan  in  its  cleanness  and  well- 
being,  with  fine  new  streets  and  bridges  and 
shops,  the  spell  of  a  great  antiquity  is  over  it, 
and  the  new  follows  the  old  with  conscientious 
effort  and  delightful  delicacy  of  feeling.  If  an 
old  city  must  gain  a  new  lease  of  life,  let  it  be 
after  the  fashion  of  Ghent. 

Here  is  an  old  treasure-house  full  of  wonders, 
and  it  can  be  touched  upon  lightly,  if  at  all,  for 
it  demands  a  volume  to  itself.  It  has  a  dozen 
churches,  all  of  the  deepest  interest;  the  Cathe- 
dral of  St.  Bavon,  St.  Nicholas,  St.  Michael,  St. 
Jacques,  standing  to  the  front.  All  suffered 


174  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

from  the  Protestants  and  the  French  Revolution, 
and  some  from  the  mishandling  of  restorers,  but 
they  retain  their  individuality,  which  is  very 
marked,  for  one  and  all  are  very  local  variants 
of  the  styles  one  finds  elsewhere;  they  are  of 
Ghent  and  of  no  other  place.  Brick  is  used 
widely,  as  elsewhere  in  Flanders,  either  by  itself 
or  mingled  with  stone;  and  it  is  used  with  that 
intelligence,  so  rare  in  modern  times,  that  in- 
dicates the  possibility  of  adapting  a  style  to  the 
materials  through  which  it  is  expressed.  Of 
course,  then  art  was  as  living  a  thing  as  religion 
and  the  realities  of  liberty,  whereas  now  they  all 
fall  in  the  category  of  those  fictions  that  please 
while  they  do  not  persuade — which  makes  all  the 
difference  in  the  world.  All  Flanders  is  a  lesson 
in  the  use  of  brick,  and  as  it  is  used  here  in  St. 
Nicholas,  and  in  the  houses  of  the  Quai  aux 
Herbes,  as  it  was  used  in  lost  Louvain,  in  deso- 
lated Ypres,  in  battered  Malines,  it  was  a  study  in 
good  art,  a  lesson  in  the  history  of  human  cul- 
ture, a  demonstration  of  the  perfect  adaptation  of 
modest  means  to  a  very  noble  end. 

Ghent  must  have  been  a  city  of  indescribable 
beauty  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century 
before  its  dark  days  began  and  one  scourge  after 


A   CANAL    IN    MALINES 


A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES  175 

another  followed  the  Reformers  with  their  com- 
bination of  dull  brutality,  insane  self-sufficiency, 
and  savage  fury  of  destruction.  Even  now  the 
group  of  towers,  St.  Bavon,  St.  Nicholas,  and  the 
belfry  with  its  "Great  Bell  Roland"— though  the 
original  spires  are  gone  and  the  belfry  has  further 
suffered  the  indignity  of  an  extinguisher  cap  of 
iron — gives  some  faint  idea  of  what  must  have 
been  before  coal  and  iron  came,  first  to  destroy 
and  then  most  hideously  to  re-create.  So  also 
does  the  towering  old  castle  give  a  hint,  whether 
you  see  it  from  the  Place  Ste.  Pharailde  or  from 
the  canal,  with  its  great  buttresses  lifting  out  of 
the  water;  so  does  the  unfinished  but  sumptuous 
Hotel  de  Ville  with  its  fretted  bays  and  balconied 
turrets;  so  do  the  beautiful  ruins  of  the  ancient 
abbey  shrouded  in  vines  and  trees.  Life  in  a 
mediaeval  city  such  as  this  could  have  left  little 
to  be  desired  so  far  as  beauty  of  environment  was 
concerned,  and  when  this  contained  within  itself 
unspoliated,  unrestored  churches  that  were  in  use 
all  the  time  and  meant  something  besides  a 
seventh-day  respectability,  and  a  great  bell  in  a 
tall  tower,  around  whose  rim  were  the  words, 
"My  name  is  Roland.  When  I  toll  there  is  fire; 
when  I  ring  there  is  victory  in  Flanders,"  it  is 


176  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

easy  to  see  how  men  could  and  did  paint  such 
pictures  as  "The  Adoration  of  the  Lamb  That  Was 
Slain." 

This,  with  the  other  great  pictures  in  Flanders, 
will  be  considered  in  another  chapter.  It  is  the 
central  art-treasure  of  the  cathedral,  the  pride  of 
the  Netherlands,  and  one  of  the  wonders  of  paint- 
ing of  the  world. 

Past  tragic  Termonde — a  name  and  a  deed 
never  to  be  forgotten  so  long  as  history  endures— 
now  only  a  desert  of  broken  walls  and  a  place 
of  unquiet  ghosts,  the  Scheldt  goes  down  to  Ant- 
werp, the  last  of  the  inner  circle  of  impotent  de- 
fences of  the  eternal  things  that  cannot  resist, 
against  the  passing  things  that  are  omnipotent 
during  their  little  day.  In  the  sixteenth  century  it 
was  the  greatest  and  richest  city  in  Europe;  now, 
with  its  400,000  inhabitants,  it  is  double  its  for- 
mer size  but  numerically  counts  for  little  beside 
the  insane  aggregations  that  call  themselves  cities 
and  are  the  work  of  the  last  century  of  misdirected 
and  evanescent  energy.  Its  greatness  culminated 
in  1550,  and  then  came  the  sequence  of  catas- 
trophes that  reduced  it  to  material  insignificance 
for  three  hundred  years,  the  Protestant  Reforma- 
tion, with  its  savage  destruction  in  1566  of  churches 


A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES  177 

and  monasteries,  and  of  what  they  stood  for  as 
well;  the  Spanish  occupation,  with  Alva's  enormi- 
ties in  1576,  when  the  more  industrious  and  able 
citizens  were  driven  into  England,  and  the  city 
itself  burned;  the  winning  away  by  the  Dutch 
of  its  old  command  of  commerce;  the  closing  of 
the  river  by  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  and  finally 
the  devastating  storm  of  the  French  Revolution 
which  destroyed  pretty  much  of  anything  that 
had  been  left.  By  this  time  the  population  had 
fallen  to  40,000,  but  under  Napoleon  a  short- 
lived recovery  began,  which  was  brought  to  an 
end  by  the  revolution  of  1830,  and  it  was  not 
until  the  middle  of  the  century  that  a  more 
lasting  development  was  initiated. 

Antwerp  is  a  good  enough  modern  town,  as 
these  go,  but  its  disasters  have  robbed  it  of  all 
its  ancient  quality,  and  even  the  cathedral  has 
the  air  of  being  out  of  place.  Great  as  it  is,  it  is 
not  a  masterpiece,  or  even  an  exemplar  of  its 
many  Gothic  variants  at  their  best.  Its  unusual 
width  and  number  of  aisles,  its  great  height  and 
its  forest  of  columns  give  a  certain  impressive- 
ness  and  a  very  beautiful  play  of  light  and  shade, 
while  its  single  tower  is  quite  wonderful  in  its 
slender  grace  and  its  intricate  and  delicate  scaf- 


178  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

folding.  Its  one  famous  picture  is  the  over- 
praised "Descent  from  the  Cross"  of  Rubens, 
painted  while  he  was  under  Italian  influence 
and  therefore,  if  quite  uncharacteristic,  nobler 
and  more  self-contained  than  the  products  of 
his  maturity  when  he  had  become  wholly  him- 
self. 

There  are  one  or  two  other  churches  of  frag- 
mentary value,  the  unique  museum  made  out  of 
the  old  dwelling  and  printing-office  of  Chris- 
topher Plan  tin,  with  its  stores  of  mediae  val  and 
Renaissance  industrial  art,  and  the  Royal  Museum 
where  there  are  more  admirable  examples  of  the 
painting  of  Flanders,  Brabant,  and  the  Nether- 
lands than  are  to  be  found  gathered  together  in 
any  other  one  place.  For  critical,  or  in  a  limited 
way,  artistic  study,  this  hoarding  together,  cheek 
by  jowl,  of  innumerable  works  of  art  collected 
from  desecrated  churches  and  ruined  monasteries, 
has  its  uses,  but  no  one  of  the  pictures  torn  from 
its  original  and  intended  surroundings  tells  for 
its  full  value.  One  wonders  sometimes  whether 
a  daily  newspaper,  a  school  of  fine  arts,  or  a  pic- 
ture-gallery is  the  most  biting  indictment  of 
contemporary  culture  and  artistic  sense;  cer- 
tainly whatever  the  answer,  the  picture-gallery 


A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES  179 

presents  powerful  claims  that  are  not  lightly  to 
be  disregarded. 

So,  from  the  dunes  of  the  North  Sea  around 
to  the  wide  estuary  of  the  Scheldt,  the  ring  of 
defences  is  complete,  and  in  the  midst  like  a 
citadel  lies  Bruges,  the  Dream  City,  preserving, 
guarding,  and  reverencing  its  dreams. 

I  knew  Bruges  first  in  1886  when  I  seem  to 
remember  its  old  walls,  when  its  new  buildings 
were  few  and  unobjectionable,  and  when  the 
tourist — English,  German,  American — was  as 
much  of  a  novelty  as  he  was  an  anachronism.  I 
am  told  now  that  the  walls  have  gone,  and  the 
boulevards  and  architects'  buildings,  and  the 
tourists  have  come  in;  have  come  in  hosts,  with 
all  their  destructive  possibilities,  but  I  can  think 
only  of  the  old  Bruges,  still,  meditative,  serene; 
a  town  Maxfield  Parish  might  have  designed,  but 
impossible  elsewhere  except  as  a  survival,  by  some 
providential  miracle  of  beneficence,  from  the  heart 
of  the  Middle  Ages. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  Bruges  has  survived  in- 
tact. Hurled  into  the  midst  of  the  maelstrom  of 
chaos  that  characterised  the  Renaissance  in  all  its 
political  aspects,  she  was  ruined  utterly  between 
Maximilian  of  Austria,  the  Calvinists,  and  the 


180  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Duke  of  Alva.  War  and  pillage,  massacre,  bribery, 
treason,  the  rack  marked  the  advance  in  culture 
and  civilisation  beyond  the  dark  days  of  medise- 
valism.  What  the  Austrian  spared  the  Protestant 
devoured,  while  the  Spaniard  gleaned  the  crumbs 
that  remained.  Bruges,  that  great  city,  proud, 
rich,  and  beautiful  above  all  cities  of  the  North, 
counted  now  a  population  of  a  scant  30,000,  hope- 
less, abandoned,  poverty-stricken. 

The  greatest  ruin  was  wrought  by  one  Balfour, 
a  creature  in  the  pay  of  William  of  Orange,  who 
in  1578  captured  the  city  and  held  it  for  six 
years,  during  which  time  the  Catholic  religion 
was  prohibited,  the  bishop  was  imprisoned,  all 
priests  were  either  driven  into  exile  or  tortured 
and  then  burned  at  the  stake,  while  churches 
were  destroyed,  turned  into  stables,  sacked  and 
desecrated,  and  more  great  pictures,  statues, 
shrines,  windows,  sacred  vessels,  and  vestments 
were  destroyed  than  have  been  miraculously 
preserved.  Every  religious  house  in  the  vicinity 
was  completely  expunged,  including  the  vast 
Cistercian  monastery  of  Coxyde,  the  most  glorious 
church  in  Flanders;  and  its  wide-spread  gardens, 
fields,  and  orchards  regained  from  the  dunes  by 
centuries  of  labour,  reverted  to  their  original 


A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES  181 

estate,  and  desolation  took  the  place  of  benefi- 
cent and  hard-won  fertility. 

Out  of  this  reign  of  terror  came  as  some  com- 
pensation the  saving  of  Bruges — or  what  was 
left  of  it.  In  1560  the  Pope  had  made  the  city 
an  episcopal  see,  on  the  urging  of  Philip  II,  and 
after  Balfour  had  met  a  well-merited,  but  too 
sudden  and  merciful,  death,  the  exiled  and  plun- 
dered orders  took  refuge  within  its  walls,  building 
new  and  humbler  quarters  for  themselves  and  hos- 
pitals and  almshouses  for  the  miserable  citizens. 
The  Church  took  the  place  of  commerce,  and 
under  its  care  some  degree  of  life  came  back  to 
the  ruined  city;  and  the  quality  it  then  took  on, 
of  a  community  of  religious  houses,  institutions 
of  charity  and  mercy,  and  old  churches  restored 
again  to  their  proper  uses,  it  has  never  lost. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and  all 
through  the  eighteenth  century  the  slow  destruc- 
tion of  old  beauty  went  on,  though  with  a  dif- 
ferent impulse.  Now  it  was  the  unescapable 
vandalism  of  ignorance  and  degraded  taste  that 
marked  the  time;  old  windows  that  had  escaped 
the  Calvinists  were  pulled  out  so  that  a  better 
light  might  fall  on  a  new  altar,  since  it  was  "such 
an  admirable  imitation  of  marble,"  even  as  hap- 


182  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

pened  in  Chartres,  where  some  of  the  matchless 
windows  were  contemptuously  cast  into  a  ditch 
to  reveal  the  tawdry  splendours  of  the  lamen- 
table high  altar  and  imitation  marble  of  the  choir 
which  represented  the  enlightened  intelligence 
of  the  eighteenth-century  canons.  The  sixteenth 
century  was  bad  enough,  but  one  wonders  some- 
times how  any  continental  culture  survived  the 
eighteenth  century. 

Later,  when  the  nineteenth  century  came  to 
crown  with  perfect  achievement  the  arduous  but 
incomplete  efforts  of  its  predecessor,  ugly  and 
barbarous  houses  took  the  place  of  only  too  many 
of  the  beautiful  works  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
finally  the  wonderful  old  walls  were  ruthlessly 
razed  to  give  place  to  silly  boulevards.  And  in 
spite  of  it  all  Bruges  survives,  and  more  com- 
pletely than  any  other  city  of  the  North,  for  it  is 
farthest  away  from  the  kingdom  of  coal  and  iron, 
and  if  war  passes  it  by,  it  may  still  remain  an 
oasis,  a  sanctuary  in  the  desert. 

The  beauty  of  Bruges  is  incomparable  and 
unique.  Threaded  by  winding  canals,  crossed 
by  innumerable  old  stone  bridges,  where  pink- 
and-grey  walls,  tall  gables,  spired  turrets,  leaning 
fronts  of  mullioned  windows  rise  from  old  stone- 


A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES  183 

paved  quays  and  garden  walls  hung  with  vines 
and  backed  by  tree  tops;  cut  by  narrow  streets 
of  ancient  houses,  with  old  churches  and  convents 
and  chapels  on  every  hand  and  with  slender 
towers  lifting  over  quaint  market-places  and 
little  squares  and  sudden  gardens,  it  is  a  con- 
tinuous and  ever-varying  and  never-exhausting 
delight  that,  so  far  as  I  know,  finds  its  rival  only 
in  Venice.  A  city  that  has  shrunken  a  little  within 
its  walls  is  always  more  beautiful  than  one  that  has 
burst  them  and  is  steadily  intruding  into  the  flee- 
ing countryside.  That  is  the  difference  between 
the  advance  of  man  and  that  of  nature.  Ghent, 
Rome,  Nuremberg  are  kernels  of  sweetness  sur- 
rounded by  a  monstrously  expanding  rind  that  is 
exceeding  bitter,  but  Carcassonne,  Rothenburg, 
Siena,  Bruges  are  so  wholly  different  there  is  no 
possibility  of  comparison.  When  the  houses  of 
an  old  town  seem  to  huddle  a  little  more  closely 
together,  while  superfluous  walls  fall  away  and 
the  tide  of  green  comes  lapping  on  already  moss- 
grown  walls  to  cover  and  obliterate  the  traces 
man  has  left  of  his  less  successful  efforts,  then  you 
have  something  approaching  a  perfect  environ- 
ment, particularly  if,  as  here,  there  are  innumer- 
able and  endless  treasures  of  the  best  that  man 


184  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

can  do,  now  carefully  preserved,  and  growing 
better  the  nearer  nature  comes  to  touch  them 
with  her  wand  of  magic. 

Architecturally,  Bruges  is  fifteenth  century  with 
a  singular  consistency — when  it  isn't  of  a  century 
later  or,  and  less  conspicuously,  of  the  fourteenth 
century;  not  that  it  matters  much,  it  all  hangs 
together  because  it  is  all  of  one  mood  and  one 
impulse  and  one  race.  Its  Hotel  de  Ville,  one  of 
the  perfect  things  in  architecture,  I  have  spoken 
of  elsewhere;  its  churches,  at  least  six  of  them, 
are  each  engaging  in  a  different  way,  and  each 
contains  treasures  of  endless  pictures,  wood  carv- 
ing, metal  work,  vestments,  gathered  from  ruined 
monasteries  and  churches  to  take  the  place  of 
the  greater  treasures  pillaged  and  destroyed  by 
the  Calvinists.  Our  Lady's  Church,  with  its 
curiously  beautiful  tower  and  its  gem-like  porch; 
the  cathedral  with  its  ugly  modern  tower  and 
its  fine  interior  with  all  its  pictures  and  treasures 
of  "dinanderie";  the  Chapel  of  the  Holy  Blood, 
still  fantastic  and  charming  in  spite  of  its  suf- 
ferings at  the  hands  of  the  French  Revolutionists; 
St.  Jacques,  St.  Gilles,  and  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  with  its  noble  tomb  of  Count 
Baldwin  of  Jerusalem  and  his  wife. 


THE    BELFRY    OF    BRUGES 


A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES  185 

Then  there  are  all  the  old  guild-houses,  hospi- 
tals, convents,  monasteries,  and  the  rows  and  rows 
of  fine  old  dwellings,  each  a  model  of  personal 
and  curiously  contented  architectural  art,  but, 
after  all,  Bruges  is  not  Bruges  because  of  its 
single  buildings,  or  all  of  them  together,  or  be- 
cause of  its  pictures  and  its  metal  work  and 
wood  carving.  It  is  Bruges  because  of  its  un- 
earthly beauty  of  canals  and  gardens,  of  endless 
sudden  compositions  of  lovely  forms  and  lines 
and  silhouettes;  because  of  its  still  atmosphere 
of  old  days  and  better  ways,  and  because  it  is  a 
place  where  religion  no  longer  appears  as  an  ac- 
cessory but  takes  its  place  even  in  these  modern 
times  as  a  constant,  daily,  poignant,  and  personal 
influence. 

Already  this  living  charm  had  begun  to  exert 
itself  over  a  wider  and  wider  field,  and  when  the 
war  came  there  were  more  than  4,000  English 
and  Americans  who  had  taken  up  their  residence 
there,  drawn  by  its  subtle  charm  and  by  what  this 
stood  for  once,  and  stands  for  now.  When  the 
King  is  back  in  Brussels  again,  and  real  life  begins 
once  more,  who  knows  but  that  the  spirit  of 
Bruges  may  find  itself  dominant  over  the  spirit 
(has  it  a  spirit?)  of  Charleroi,  not  only  in  Flan- 


186  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

ders  and  Belgium  and  Europe,  but  throughout 
the  world,  for  "the  old  order  changeth,  giving 
place  to  new,"  and  the  "new"  is  also,  and  un- 
mistakably, the  old,  preserved  as  here  in  Bruges 
for  better  days,  when  through  suffering  and  ruin 
man  comes  into  his  own  again,  and  sees  once 
more  what  is,  what  is  not,  worth  while. 

In  Brabant  were  once  other  centres  of  old 
memories:  Maastricht,  Liege,  Huy,  and  Namur; 
Dinant,  Louvain,  and  Malines.  None  of  them 
remains,  for  across  Brabant  runs  the  black  scar 
that  has  transformed  the  cities  of  the  Sambre 
and  the  Meuse  into  smoking  anvils,  where  iron 
is  hammered  out  into  efficiency  and  coal  is  torn 
from  the  earth  and  burned  in  consuming  fires 
to  the  same  end;  for  across  Brabant  runs  the 
red  scar  that  efficiency  has  blazed  like  a  trail  of 
enduring  flame,  never  to  be  forgotten  or  forgiven 
so  long  as  man  remains  on  earth;  a  portent  and  a 
horror  to  all  generations  in  scecula  sceculorum. 
Dinant,  Louvain,  Malines;  yes,  and  Tirlemont, 
Aerschot,  Wavre  and  the  innumerable  other  names 
that  are  uttered  below  the  breath  as  signifying 
things  that  cannot  be  spoken  but  never  will  be  for- 
gotten, things  that  give  one  at  last  to  understand 
the  stern  necessity  of  the  once  discredited,  but 


A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES  187 

now  grateful,  doctrines  of  hell  and  of  eternal  dam- 
nation in  the  Christian  scheme  of  the  universe. 

Dinant,  whose  fame  in  the  fifteenth  century 
for  the  making  of  wonderful  works  of  art  in  metal, 
gave  the  name  "dinanderie"  to  this  admirable 
art — Dinant,  crouched  under  the  castle-crowned 
cliffs  of  the  Meuse,  with  its  quaint  church,  has 
gone  now,  and  gone  also  is  Lou  vain,  all  but  its 
Hotel  de  Ville  which  is  more  like  a  pyx  or  a  reli- 
quary, or  some  other  work  of  "dinanderie,"  than 
a  real  building.  The  destruction  of  Louvain 
needs  no  description,  for  its  fires  have  burned 
its  story  indelibly  into  human  consciousness. 
We  know  only  too  well  how  its  university  was 
destroyed,  with  its  priceless  library  and  its  an- 
cient and  unique  manuscripts;  how  the  great 
and  beautiful  Church  of  St.  Pierre  was  swept  by 
flames  and  left  a  hopeless  ruin;  how  its  streets 
were  absorbed,  one  after  another,  in  the  roaring 
conflagration,  covering  with  their  debris  the  stains 
of  massacre  and  pillage.  Of  Malines  we  know 
less,  nor  shall  until  the  great  cloud  rolls  back,  but 
there  was  much  there  to  lose,  and  some  of  this 
we  know  has  been  lost  while  more  may  follow. 
In  spite  of  the  altars  to  coal  and  iron  outside  the 
old  cincture  of  the  town,  Malines  itself  was  a 


188  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

gentle  and  lovely  old  place,  gathered  around  its 
great  Church  of  St.  Rombaut  with  its  incredible 
tower.  A  town  of  old  houses  and  still  canals  in 
strangely  poetic  combination,  a  little  Bruges  with 
a  finer  church  than  any  the  perfect  Flemish  city 
could  boast.  The  church  itself  is  of  a  vigorous 
type  of  the  earliest  fourteenth-century  architec- 
ture, but  the  great  tower,  which  was  planned  as 
the  highest  and  most  splendid  spire  in  the  world, 
though  it  completed  only  three  hundred  and 
twenty  of  its  projected  five  hundred  and  fifty 
feet,  is  fifteenth  century,  and  as  perfect  an  ex- 
ample of  late  Gothic  at  its  best  as  may  be  found 
anywhere  in  the  world.  It  is  really  indescribable 
in  its  combination  of  majesty,  brilliancy  of  de- 
sign, and  inconceivable  intricacy  of  detail.  The 
exuberance  that  marks  the  flamboyant  art  of 
France  is  here  controlled  and  directed  into  the 
most  excellent  channels,  and  if  ever  it  had  been 
completed  it  must  have  taken  its  place  as  the 
most  beautiful  tower  in  the  world.  As  it  is,  it 
ranks  in  its  own  way  with  the  southern  fleche  of 
Chartres  and  Giotto's  Tower  in  Florence,  and 
more  one  cannot  say. 

Information  is  not  forthcoming  as  to  how  far 
it  already  has  been  wrecked;    it  is  said  that  the 


A  TALE  OF  THREE  CITIES  189 

glimmering  pinnacles  and  niches  of  its  amazing 
buttresses  have  suffered  severely  from  shell-fire, 
and  that  its  carillon,  the  finest  in  Belgium,  has 
been  destroyed;  if  nothing  worse  follows,  the 
world  may  yet  see  its  visionary  spire  take  actual 
form  at  last,  in  the  gratitude  of  a  people  for  the 
passing  from  themselves,  and  from  the  world,  of 
the  shadow  of  death. 

Inevitably,  when  one  thinks  of  Malines,  Lou- 
vain,  Ypres,  Arras,  Soissons,  Reims,  there  comes 
the  suggestion  of  possible  restorations,  concretely 
expressed  already  by  German  savants  and  ar- 
chaeologists incapable  of  comprehending  the  dif- 
ference between  art  and  imitation,  and  as  some 
palliation  for  the  evils  that  have  been  done.  It 
is  a  thought  that  must  resolutely  be  put  aside. 
As  I  said  in  speaking  of  Reims,  if  enough  remains 
to  be  made  habitable  by  simple  patching  and 
protection,  let  this  be  done  by  all  means,  but 
without  a  foot  of  false  carving  or  glass  or  sculp- 
ture. Build  other  churches  if  you  like,  and  as 
you  must,  and  perhaps  on  the  old  general  lines, 
though  elsewhere,  but  let  us  have  no  more  a  Pierre- 
fond  or  a  Mt.  St.  Michael.  What  is  gone  is  gone 
irrevocably,  and  its  shells  and  shards  are  too  valu- 
able in  their  eternal  teaching  to  be  obliterated 


190  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

by  well-meant  schemes  of  rehabilitation.  When 
a  whole  town  passes,  as  Ypres  and  Louvain  and 
Arras,  then  as  it  fell  so  let  it  lie.  A  kindly  nature 
will  slowly  turn  these  bleak  piles  of  fallen  masonry 
into  beautiful  memorials,  clothing  them  with 
grass  and  vines  and  flowers  and  trees.  Let  them 
stand  so  for  ever,  a  memorial  to  the  dead  and  a 
warning  to  man  in  his  pride  of  life  and  insolence 
of  will;  and  for  the  new  cities,  let  them  rise  as 
beautifully  as  may  be  alongside,  but  not  over, 
the  graves  of  a  dead  era.  Glastonbury  and  Ju- 
mieges,  in  their  solemn  and  noble  ruin,  tell  their 
story  to  ears  that  at  last  are  disposed  to  listen, 
and  the  story  of  Reims  and  Louvain,  with  the 
same  moral  at  its  end,  must  be  told  eternally 
after  the  same  fashion. 


X 

MARGARET   OF   MALINES 

THE  historians  always  call  her  Marguerite 
of  Austria,  but  this  is  hardly  fair,  for  even 
if  she  were  a  daughter  of  the  Hapsburg  Emperor 
Maximilian  she  did  not  come  into  her  own  until 
she  took  up  her  residence  in  a  beautiful  castle  in 
Malines  and  made  that  own  the  fortune  and  the 
destinies  and  the  happiness  of  the  Flemish  people 
who  had  been  given  her.  On  both  her  father's 
side  and  her  mother's  she  was  English,  if  you  go 
back  far  enough,  her  great,  great,  great-grand- 
father having  been  that  "John  of  Gaunt  (Ghent), 
time-honoured  Lancaster"  of  whom  we  have  heard 
before.  Her  mother,  Mary  of  Burgundy,  who 
died  when  she  was  a  baby,  traced  her  line  back 
through  Charles  the  Bold  and  Isabella  of  Bour- 
bon to  John  of  Gaunt's  daughter,  Philippa,  who 
married  John  I  of  Portugal;  and  it  is  through 
Philippa' s  son  Eduard  and  his  daughter  Eleanor 
who  married  Maximilian's  father,  the  Emperor 
Frederick  III,  that  the  strain  comes  on  the  father's 

191 


192  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

side.  So  "Margaret  of  Malines"  let  her  be;  and 
as  well  the  well-beloved  Regent  of  Flanders,  for 
never,  even  in  the  great  days  of  great  kings  and 
governors,  was  there  ever  a  better  sovereign  or 
a  more  engaging  lady. 

The  Middle  Ages  are  as  full  of  lovable  and  ad- 
mirable women  as  the  Renaissance  is  of  sinister 
and  regrettable  representatives  of  the  same  sex. 
They  had  no  votes  and  they  claimed  no  rights; 
they  were  less  welcome  at  birth  than  princes,  and 
they  were  incontinently  (and  often  prodigally) 
married  off  without  a  "by  your  leave"  by  their 
scheming  fathers.  Wholly  subservient  both  in 
principle  and  in  law,  they  were  anything  but  this 
in  fact,  and  a  study  of  the  Middle  Ages  reveals 
a  certain  feminine  dominance  that  is  startling  to 
the  male  of  to-day.  It  is  well  to  remember  that 
the  clinging  type,  with  the  ringlets  and  facile  emo- 
tions and  tears,  is  a  product  of  modern  civilisa- 
tion; medievalism  knew  nothing  of  it,  and  little 
of  that  even  less  attractive  aspect  that  always 
becomes  conspicuous  when  society  is  breaking 
down  at  the  end  of  an  era;  a  Catherine  of  Russia, 
while  not  without  prototypes  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
would  have  been  as  anomalous  then  as  a  Blanche 
of  Castile  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Apparently, 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  193 

the  only  conspicuous  differences  between  the  men 
and  women  of  medievalism  were  that  the  men 
did  the  fighting  and  most  of  the  active  or  violent 
work,  while  the  women  directed  their  courses, 
corrected  their  mistakes,  and  built  up  their  char- 
acter and  that  of  their  children;  and  that  the 
men  confined  themselves  to  the  tactics  while  the 
women  controlled  the  major  strategy  of  the 
battle  of  life. 

The  glitter  and  the  show  remained  with  the 
men,  the  substance  of  power  remained  with  the 
women,  and  as  their  vision  is  apt  to  be  wider 
and  more  penetrating  it  is  fortunate  that  this 
was  so.  Of  course  it  was  all  a  part  of  the  very 
real  supremacy  of  Christianity  over  all  domains 
of  activity,  all  phases  of  life  and  thought.  As 
soon  as  its  power  began  to  lapse  and  old  pagan 
theories  came  in  with  the  Renaissance,  while 
Our  Lady  and  the  saints  were  dethroned  by  the 
Reformation,  the  wholesome  balance  was  over- 
thrown and  women  slowly  fell  back  to  that 
earlier  position  where  the  only  defence  against 
male  oppression  was  the  power  of  sex,  the  result 
being  those  artificial  barriers  and  differences,  and 
the  unwholesome  bartering  of  bribes  and  promises 
and  threats,  that  always  have  resulted,  and  al- 


194  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

ways  will,  in  a  complete  downfall  of  personal  and 
social  righteousness.  The  problem  to-day  is  not 
how  women  are  to  get  the  ballot  but  how  they 
are  to  regain  their  old  mediaeval  equality  (or 
supremacy  if  you  like)  without  it.  During  me- 
disevalism  men  were  more  masculine  and  women 
more  feminine  than  ever  before  or  since,  and  in 
all  probability  a  good  part  of  the  ethical,  cultural, 
and  social  success  of  the  time  was  due  to  this 
fact  and  to  the  absence  of  artificial  barriers  that 
denied  to  demonstrated  character  and  to  proved 
capacity  the  opportunity  of  effective  service. 

Whenever  you  find  a  great  man  in  mediaeval 
history  (or  any  other  for  that  matter)  cherchez  la 
femme  ;  ten  to  one  you  will  find  behind  a  St.  Louis 
a  mother  like  Blanche  of  Castile,  or  a  guardian 
like  Margaret  of  Austria  behind  a  Charles  V. 
Men  try  in  vain  to  change  the  course  of  history 
by  their  own  efforts;  women  always  have  the 
power  to  do  this  through  the  new  generation  they 
are  nursing  and  educating,  while  the  men  are  ex- 
hausting their  energies  in  the  fighting  and  the 
politics  and  the  everlasting  strenuousness  that 
bring  so  many  great  things  to  pass  that  hardly 
last  overnight.  After  all,  so  far  anyway  as  the 
Middle  Ages  are  concerned,  it  was  the  monks 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  195 

and  nuns  at  their  endless  prayers  in  chapel  and 
cell  and  cloister,  and  the  mothers  in  their  tall 
towers  and  their  walled  gardens,  with  their  chil- 
dren about  them,  that  made  the  great  and  en- 
during things  possible. 

Margaret  of  Malines  was  as  perfect  a  type  of 
this  consecrated  womanhood  as  one  could  find  in 
a  year's  delving  in  ancient  history;  in  addition 
she  was  a  particularly  charming  lady  and  a  very 
great  statesman.  Moreover  her  twenty-three  years 
of  rule  in  the  Netherlands  cover  a  particularly 
significant  and  interesting  period  in  the  history 
of  this  country  and  the  end  of  mediaeval  civilisa- 
tion here  when  it  had  outlasted  its  career  else- 
where in  Europe,  so  we  may  try  in  a  chapter  to 
give  some  idea  of  society  in  the  Heart  of  Europe, 
at  exactly  the  moment  when  it  was  about  to  sur- 
render to  the  anarchy  that  already  was  progres- 
sively dominant  elsewhere. 

Margaret  was  born  on  January  10,  1480,  in 
Brussels.  Her  father,  the  Archduke  Maximilian 
of  Hapsburg,  was  apparently  a  kind  of  imperial 
Admirable  Crichton — handsome,  fearless,  a  gal- 
lant knight,  a  poet,  painter,  scholar,  patron  of 
all  arts  and  letters,  and  as  serenely  conscious  of 
his  personal  merits  as  they  deserved.  Her  mother 


196  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

was  the  beautiful  Mary  of  Burgundy,  daughter 
of  the  headlong  and  magnificent  Charles  the 
Bold  and  Isabel  of  Bourbon  who,  like  Margaret's 
own  mother,  and  her  father's  mother,  Eleanor  of 
Portugal,  was  one  of  those  fine  and  beautiful 
characters  with  which  mediaeval  history  is  so 
full.  When  the  little  Margaret  was  only  two 
years  old  her  radiant  mother,  who  was  adored 
by  every  one,  was  killed  while  hunting  and  Maxi- 
milian, who  was  heartbroken  and  quite  frantic  with 
grief,  found  his  two  children,  Margaret  and  her 
brother  Philip,  seized  by  the  somewhat  aggressive 
burghers  of  Ghent  on  the  ground  that  it  was  for 
the  state,  and  not  the  father,  to  determine  their 
education  and  their  future.  Louis  XI  of  France 
was  undoubtedly  behind  them,  for  he  believed  he 
saw  his  chance  to  devour  Burgundy,  and  in  the 
end  he  cleverly  engineered  the  treaty  of  Arras 
whereby  the  small  Margaret  was  affianced  to  his 
son  Charles  and  taken  to  the  French  court  to  be 
properly  educated,  while  Philip  remained  in  Flan- 
ders to  be  reared  as  the  burghers  saw  fit. 

Fortunately,  the  old  French  spider,  Louis  XI, 
died  almost  as  soon  as  Margaret  reached  Paris, 
and  her  education  was  undertaken  by  his  daughter 
the  Princess  Anne,  who  became  regent  for  the 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  197 

Dauphin  Charles  and  was  another  of  those  strong 
and  righteous  personalities  of  a  time  that  already 
had  almost  exhausted  itself  by  overproduction. 
Under  her  able  direction  the  chateau  of  Amboise 
became  a  kind  of  "finishing  school"  for  princesses, 
and  here  the  small  Margaret  was  subjected  to  a 
system  of  training  that  would  stagger  the  present 
day.  "On  a  foundation  of  strong  religious  prin- 
ciples hewn  from  the  early  fathers  of  the  Church 
and  the  Enseignements  de  Saint  Louis,  she  built 
up  a  moral  and  philosophic  education  with  the 
help  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  especially  Plato 
as  studied  with  the  commentary  of  Boethius," 
maintaining  a  cloisteral  simplicity  of  life  and 
fighting  affectation  and  pretence  with  an  austere 
ardour  that  contrasts  quaintly  with  the  court  life 
of  the  time.  And  all  this  just  before  the  discovery 
of  America  and  on  the  eve  of  the  election  of  the 
Borgia,  Alexander  VI,  to  the  Papacy ! 

In  spite  of  her  gorgeous  betrothal  to  the  poor 
little  awkward  and  misshapen  prince,  the  marriage 
was  destined  not  to  come  off;  political  considera- 
tions intervened,  and  Charles  married  Anne,  the 
heiress  of  Brittany,  out  of  hand,  and  the  Prin- 
cess Margaret  was  unceremoniously  returned  to 
Flanders  where  she  was  received  with  enthusiasm 


198  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

by  her  loyal  if  turbulent  and  irresponsible  Flem- 
ings. 

The  situation  was  characteristically  fifteenth 
century,  which  is  to  say  impetuous  and  fantastic. 
Maximilian  had  just  been  made  King  of  the 
Romans  and  heir  to  the  Holy  Roman  Empire; 
he  had  ventured  into  the  nest  of  unruly  Flemings, 
been  captured,  and  imprisoned  for  eleven  weeks, 
to  the  scandal  of  Europe  and  of  the  Pope  who 
put  both  Bruges  and  Ghent  under  the  interdict. 
Maximilian  won  in  the  end  by  promising  much 
and  performing  little,  and  then  backed  Brittany 
against  France,  intending  to  marry  the  little 
Princess  Anne,  but  he  lost  both  the  battle  and 
his  coveted  bride  with  her  desirable  territories, 
both  being  won  by  his  prospective  son-in-law 
Charles  who  at  one  blow  threw  over  Margaret, 
and  won  the  very  lady  her  father  had  been  striving 
to  attain.  Maximilian's  irritation  was  perhaps 
excusable  under  the  circumstances,  but  when  he 
found  no  one  who  really  cared  to  help  him  in  a 
war  against  France  he  turned  to  schemes  of  a 
new  crusade  for  driving  the  Turks  out  of  Eu- 
rope, consoled  himself  with  a  Sforza  princess  from 
Milan,  and  worked  out  a  beautiful  new  scheme  of 
a  Spanish  alliance  by  marrying  his  son  Philip  to 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  199 

the  Princess  Juana  and  Margaret  to  the  royal 
Infante,  Don  Juan.  Margaret  was  now  seven- 
teen, and  after  Dona  Juana  had  made  her  way 
to  Flanders  by  sea,  always  in  imminent  danger  of 
shipwreck,  and  married  Prince  Philip,  she  took 
the  poor  storm-tossed  ladies-in-waiting  back  with 
her  by  the  same  uncomfortable  route,  producing 
for  their  edification,  in  the  midst  of  the  worst  of 
the  incessant  tempests,  her  proposed  epitaph  which 
ran: 

"Ci-gist  Margot,  la  gentile  demoiselle 
Qu'eut  deux  maris,  et  ci  mourut  pucelle." 

The  epitaph  was  not  needed,  and  Margaret 
reached  Spain  at  last,  where  she  was  received 
with  wild  joy,  at  once  becoming  the  idol  of  all 
who  met  her,  from  Queen  Isabella  down.  The 
prince  was  of  the  same  temper  as  herself,  hand- 
some, noble  in  character,  learned,  proficient  in 
all  the  arts,  and  they  were  married  the  moment 
Lent  was  over,  in  the  midst  of  a  kind  of  frenzy 
of  general  joy  and  magnificence.  This  was  on 
Easter  Sunday,  April  10,  1497;  on  October  4 
the  fairy  prince  was  dead  of  the  plague,  dying 
as  he  had  lived  his  brief  life  of  nineteen  years, 
a  gentle  and  perfect  knight,  destroying  the  golden 
dreams  of  his  people,  breaking  the  heart  of  the 


200  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Queen,  and  leaving  Margaret,  heartbroken  also, 
to  await  the  birth  of  her  child,  who  was  born  only 
to  die  after  a  single  breath.  The  life  of  the  girl- 
widow  was  despaired  of,  but  she  finally  recovered, 
and  in  spite  of  the  prayers  of  the  sorrowing  Queen 
and  court,  who  had  acquired  a  passionate  affec- 
tion for  her,  returned  to  Flanders,  where  her 
brother  Philip,  through  a  sequence  of  deaths  in 
the  royal  family  of  Spain,  had  suddenly  found  his 
wife  the  heir  to  the  vast  and  powerful  kingdom. 
Margaret  arrived  in  1499  and  two  years  later, 
again  for  political  reasons  (her  spirited  father  now 
being  interested  in  the  conquest  of  Italy),  was 
married  to  Duke  Philibert  of  Savoy,  Philibert 
le  Beau,  a  figure  of  splendour,  courage,  learning, 
and  beneficence;  devoted  to  his  people,  to  govern- 
mental and  industrial  reform,  to  the  founding  of 
schools,  hospitals,  monasteries.  One  looks  aghast 
on  the  mortality  of  young  and  promising  leaders 
at  this  particular  time.  They  arise  like  splendid 
stars,  they  embody  all  the  beneficent  quality  of 
the  five  centuries  of  medievalism  that  already 
had  come  to  an  end;  they  have  no  kinship  with 
the  new  type  of  the  Renaissance  then  first  show- 
ing itself — with  a  Henry  VIII,  a  Francis  I,  a 
Philip  II,  an  Alexander  VI — and  one  by  one  they 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  201 

are  blotted  out  of  the  darkening  heavens.  Born 
out  of  due  time,  after  the  ending  of  an  epoch  of 
righteousness  and  beauty,  they  seem  to  be  taken 
away  from  a  world  they  could  not  save  and  that 
could  only  have  been  for  them  a  misery  and  a 
disappointment,  as  it  was  for  Margaret's  baby 
nephew,  Charles,  who  was  destined  to  inherit  the 
world  in  its  chaotic  desolation  only  to  surrender 
it  at  last  and  seek  refuge  in  the  cloister. 

So  it  was  with  this  model  of  chivalry,  Philibert 
the  Beautiful;  three  years  of  ecstatic  happiness 
were  granted  him  and  his  duchess,  Margaret,  and 
then  he  also  died,  in  the  room  in  which  he  had 
been  born,  at  Pont  d'Ain,  only  twenty -four  years 
before.  Margaret  withdrew  at  once  from  the 
world,  cut  off  her  great  wealth  of  golden  hair,  and 
devoted  herself  to  prayers  and  devotions,  and  to 
the  building  at  Brou,  in  memory  of  the  dead  duke, 
of  that  matchless  piece  of  architectural  jewel  work, 
the  shrine  that  occupied  the  energies  of  the  great- 
est artist-craftsmen  in  Europe  for  a  period  of 
twenty-five  years.  From  every  part  of  France, 
Flanders,  Burgundy,  Italy  architects,  painters, 
sculptors,  glassmakers,  wood-workers,  craftsmen 
in  metals  were  gathered  together,  and  thus  they 
laboured  year  after  year,  at  first  supervised  by  the 


202  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Duchess  Margaret  from  an  oratory  she  had  built 
where  she  might  divide  her  time  between  inter- 
cessions for  the  repose  of  the  soul  of  her  knight 
and  superintendence  of  the  building  that  was  to 
immortalise  his  memory  and  form  the  place  of 
sepulture  for  him,  and  for  her  when  God  willed. 
In  the  money  of  our  time  the  cost  of  this  shrine, 
small  as  it  is,  was  over  $4,000,000,  and  it  rep- 
resented the  ending  of  art  as  it  maiked  the  end- 
ing of  a  great  epoch. 

The  peace  and  the  withdrawal  from  the  world 
the  poor  princess  desired  above  everything  were 
denied  her.  Two  years  after  the  death  of  the 
Duke  of  Savoy,  Philip,  the  only  son  of  Maximil- 
ian, brother  of  Margaret,  husband  of  poor  Dona 
Juana,  who  was  destined  to  a  life  of  madness, 
Philip,  Archduke  of  Austria,  regent  of  the  Nether- 
lands, King  of  Castile,  another  of  the  promising 
princes  of  Christendom,  died  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
eight,  leaving  five  children,  with  another  shortly  to 
be  born,  and  amongst  them  was  the  seven-year-old 
Charles,  the  heir  of  the  world.  At  the  solemn 
obsequies  in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Rombaut  in 
Malines  (the  same  whose  tower  is  now  shattered 
by  Prussian  shells),  at  the  end  of  the  mass,  the 
King-at-Arms  of  the  Golden  Fleece  cast  his  baton 


THE   TOWER   OF  ST.    ROMBAUT.    MALINES 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  203 

along  the  pavement  and  cried  three  times  in  a 
loud  voice:  "Le  Roi  est  mort !"  Raising  it  again 
he  cried  again:  "Vive  don  Charles,  par  la  grace 
Dieu,  Archiduc  d'Autrice,  Prince  des  Espagnes!" 
and  without  a  pause  a  herald  continued,  raising 
his  great  banner  from  the  ground,  "de  Bourbon, 
de  Lostric,  et  de  Brabant";  and  a  second,  "Comte 
de  Flandres,  d'Arethorys,  de  Bourgone,  Palatin 
d'Haynault,  de  Hollande,  de  Zelande,  de  Namur, 
et  de  Zutphen!"  and  a  third  continued  the  long 
list,  and  a  fourth,  the  last  ending:  "Marquis  du 
Sainct  Empire,  Seigneur  de  Frise,  de  Salins,  et  de 
Malines!" 

So  the  future  Lord  of  the  World  entered  into 
his  inheritance  at  the  age  of  seven,  and  as  always, 
without  a  murmur  or  a  protest,  Margaret  left  her 
oratory,  turned  from  her  slowly  rising  shrine,  and 
went  into  Flanders  to  be  guardian  for  the  future 
Emperor,  to  train  him  for  his  task,  and  meantime 
to  administer  for  him  one  of  the  most  turbulent, 
if  rich  and  beautiful,  dominions  of  his  patrimony. 

Bruges  and  Ghent  were  too  uncertain  in  their 
temper  as  the  result  of  an  uncontrolled  guild 
system  and  its  inevitable  democracy,  inorganic 
and  chaotic.  Moreover,  Margaret  herself  had  been 
educated  in  Malines  by  her  grandmother,  Mar- 


204  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

garet  of  York,  widow  of  Charles  the  Bold,  so  to 
Malines  she  came  with  four  of  her  little  nephews 
and  nieces,  and  was  received  with  great  rejoicing, 
taking  up  her  residence  in  a  very  splendid  palace, 
the  Hotel  de  Savoy,  portions  of  which  still  re- 
main and  are  used  as  a  Palais  de  Justice. 

Malines  in  1507  was  a  very  different  city  from 
that  of  to-day;  as  we  could  have  seen  it  a  year 
ago  with  its  narrow  and  winding  streets,  its  frag- 
ments of  old  ruins,  its  little  gabled  houses,  we 
loved  it  for  its  quaintness  and  its  modest  pictur- 
esqueness  which  formed  a  kind  of  foil  to  the  vast 
tower  of  St.  Rombaut,  lifting  like  a  truncated 
obelisk  above  a  low  plain.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century  it  was,  like  the  other  great 
cities  of  Flanders  and  Brabant,  a  place  of  palaces 
and  gardens,  a  courtly  and  splendid  city,  rich, 
busy,  magnificent.  In  the  night  of  the  "Spanish 
Fury"  in  Antwerp  it  is  of  record  that  amongst 
other  proud  buildings,  five  hundred  palaces  of 
marble  or  chiselled  stone  were  destroyed,  and  this 
gives  some  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  other  cities 
that  rivalled  and  exceeded  Antwerp  in  magnifi- 
cence. Malines,  when  the  Duchess  Margaret  took 
up  her  abode  there,  was  no  village  of  dark  and 
dirty  little  streets,  but  a  city  of  palaces,  far  finer 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  205 

than  London,  or  even  Paris,  and  a  fitting  residence 
for  a  princely  court  and  for  the  future  Emperor. 
The  new  Regent  made  it  more  magnificent  than 
ever;  it  was  a  time  when  five  centuries  of  mediaeval 
culture  were  blooming  in  beauty  and  great  learn- 
ing, and  the  beneficent  qualities  of  the  early,  or 
Christian  Renaissance,  were  uniting  with  all  that 
had  come  from  an  epoch  whose  term  had  already 
arrived.  In  Italy  the  Renaissance  had  rotted  into 
a  poison,  but  the  virus  had  penetrated  only  a  little 
way  into  the  veins  of  Europe.  The  Papacy  was 
rotten  to  the  core,  the  Medici  were  cloaking  their 
pestilential  tyranny  and  their  glorification  of 
material  gain  in  the  fine  vesture  of  learning  and 
aesthetics.  Machiavelli  was  dethroning  Christian 
ethics  and  substituting  efficiency  in  its  place, 
but  the  Christian  Renaissance  was  still  fighting 
its  losing  battle  through  Cardinal  Cusa,  Sir 
Thomas  More,  and  Erasmus.  Diirer,  Holbein, 
Hans  Sachs  were  giving  a  new  glory  to  at  least 
two  of  the  arts  in  Germany,  and  as  yet  Luther 
was  no  more  than  a  threat,  Wolsey  a  rising  star 
whose  balefulness  was  not  apparent,  Calvin  un- 
heard of,  Henry  VIII  a  splendid  prince  shortly 
to  be  proclaimed  "Defender  of  the  Faith"  he  was 
so  soon  to  cast  down  into  the  mire. 


206  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

In  the  domains  of  Margaret  of  Malines  the 
afterglow  of  Catholic  culture  was  still  golden  and 
gracious,  and  while  she  defended  the  interests 
and  the  welfare  of  the  principality  she  held  in 
trust  with  a  vigour  and  a  persistency  that  threw 
into  the  shade  the  lesser  abilities  of  her  male 
predecessors,  she  made  of  her  city  a  new  centre 
of  learning  and  righteousness.  Here  came  Louis 
Vives  and  Adrian,  Archbishop  of  Utrecht,  later 
the  Pope  of  a  year  who,  had  he  lived,  might  have 
reformed  the  Church  and  made  the  Protestant 
Reformation  innocuous;  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam, 
that  engaging  character  who  could  have  matched 
and  worsted  Luther,  and  done  his  work  better 
than  he,  had  he  possessed  the  sincerity  and  the 
consecration  of  a  martyr;  "Cornelius  Agrippa," 
Masse,  Everard,  Molinet,  Renacle  de  Florienne, 
and  other  lesser  lights.  Mabuse,  Van  Orley, 
Coxcie  came  as  painters  to  produce  the  altar- 
pieces  and  portraits  desired  by  the  Regent  and 
her  court;  composers  and  musicians  sought  her 
patronage,  for  she  had  a  passionate  love  for  music 
of  all  sorts  and  wrote  many  poems  and  songs  which 
they  set  after  the  fashion  of  the  time.  Her  in- 
terest in  architecture  was  intense,  and  she  made 
Rombaut  Keldermans  her  court  architect,  charg- 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  207 

ing  him  amongst  other  things  with  the  comple- 
tion of  the  vast  tower  of  the  church  of  his  name- 
saint,  begun  by  his  direct  ancestor  Jan  in  1452. 
This  was  a  famous  family  of  master  masons,  Jan, 
with  his  brother  Andre,  Mathieu,  Antoine,  and 
later  Antoine  II,  Rombaut,  and  Laurent.  The 
designs  for  the  completion  of  St.  Rombaut's  tower 
and  also  for  a  great  Hotel  de  Ville  are  still  pre- 
served, and  in  vision  one  can  see  them  carried 
out  by  and  by  in  a  new  and  regenerated  Malines 
under  a  new  and  regenerated  civilisation.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  stone  for  St.  Rombaut's  spire 
was  already  cut  and  on  the  ground  when  the  for- 
tunes of  Flanders  changed,  and  in  1582  it  was  all 
seized  by  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and  carried  away 
to  build  a  new  town  at  Willemstadt.  During 
Margaret's  regency,  the  great  Cathedral  of  Ste. 
Gudule  at  Brussels  was  built,  the  good  part  of 
the  Ghent  Hotel  de  Ville,  the  belfry  of  Bruges, 
the  spire  of  Antwerp,  as  well  as  innumerable 
other  great  works  that  perished  at  the  hands  of 
the  Spaniards,  the  Calvinists,  and  the  French 
devils  of  the  Revolution. 

As  a  collector  of  books,  pictures,  works  of  art 
of  all  kinds  she  was  indefatigable.  In  her  own 
house,  which  was  a  true  palace  of  art,  were  Van 


208  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Eycks,  Memlings,  Van  der  Weydens,  Dierick 
Bouts,  most  of  which  succumbed  long  ago  to 
ignorance  and  vandalism.  There  were  priceless 
tapestries  without  end,  sequences  of  six  or  more: 
The  Life  of  Queen  Esther,  the  Story  of  the  Three 
Kings,  of  the  Earthly  Paradise,  of  Arcadia;  La  Cite 
des  Dames,  the  History  of  the  Cid,  of  Alexander, 
of  St.  Helena.  An  inventory  of  the  palace  art 
still  exists  and  reads  like  a  story  out  of  the  Arabian 
Nights;  we  here  find  catalogued  wonderful  car- 
pets and  rugs;  armour  inlaid  with  gold  and  silver; 
caskets,  clocks,  vases  of  precious  metals,  carved 
and  engraved  gems,  precious  marbles,  jasper, 
ivory,  alabaster,  chalcedony;  gold-and-silver  plate 
set  with  precious  stones.  As  for  her  private 
library  it  was  a  treasure-house  and  a  student's 
sanctuary.  There  were  one  hundred  and  fifty 
vellum  volumes  illumined  with  colours  and  gold 
and  bound  in  velvet,  gilded  leather,  metal  studded 
with  gems;  there  were  three  editions  of  Aristotle, 
four  of  Livy,  with  the  works  of  Ovid,  Seneca, 
Caesar.  There  was  a  large  collection  of  theological 
and  moral  works,  decretals  and  digests  in  Latin 
and  French,  the  works  of  St.  Augustine,  Lives  of 
Saints,  Bibles,  missals,  breviaries,  books  of  hours, 
Gospels,  Testaments.  Froissart  was  there,  with 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  209 

all  the  old  Arthurian  romances,  as  well  as  the 
"Golden  Legend,"  "Le  Livre  de  Tresor,"  "le  Mir- 
roir  du  Monde,"  "le  Mirroir  des  Dames";  books 
on  hunting,  falconry,  chess,  fashions.  All  these 
were  illumined  manuscripts,  but  printing  was  al- 
ready an  industry,  and  what  Margaret  had  in  this 
line  we  can  only  guess,  as  this  particular  cata- 
logue is  gone. 

It  was  in  this  wonderful  palace,  set  in  the 
midst  of  many  other  palaces  in  a  rich  and  courtly 
city,  where  the  streets  were  always  full  of  the 
pageantry  of  the  iridescent  mingling  of  an  end- 
ing medievalism  and  an  unfolding  Renaissance, 
that  Margaret  lived  for  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
training  the  little  princes  and  princesses,  admin- 
istering the  very  complicated  affairs  of  her  state, 
defending  it  against  aggression,  composing  its 
internal  differences,  giving  aid  to  the  sick,  the 
suffering,  and  the  disquieted  in  mind  and  soul, 
conversing  with  the  philosophers,  poets,  and 
theologians  she  had  drawn  from  many  sources, 
and  all  the  time  keeping  architects,  painters, 
sculptors,  craftsmen  busy  in  adding  to  the  wealth 
of  beauty  already  superabundant  in  the  Nether- 
lands. 

Flanders  and  Brabant  have  always  been  for- 


210  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

tunate  when  women  ruled  in  the  place  of  men 
and  never  more  so  than  under  Margaret  of  Ma- 
lines.  She  guarded  with  the  most  jealous  care 
every  just  interest  of  her  people,  beating  at  the 
outset  Henry  VII  of  England  in  a  diplomatic 
contest,  but  later  refusing  to  marry  the  thrifty 
monarch  ("They  have  tried  to  marry  me  three 
times,  but  my  luck  is  bad.")?  bringing  Charles  of 
Guelders  to  rights,  aiding  in  the  defeat  of  France 
by  her  father  and  young  Prince  Henry  of  Eng- 
land at  the  Battle  of  the  Spurs,  but  on  the  whole 
maintaining  an  unwonted  peace. 

Not  for  a  thousand  years  had  there  been  a 
time  more  momentous  than  the  years  of  Mar- 
garet's regency;  more  complicated  in  its  conflict- 
ing currents,  more  amazing  in  its  possibilities 
and  in  the  ideas  that  were  brought  forth.  The 
Renaissance  was  in  the  saddle  in  Italy,  riding  the 
Church  and  society  to  their  fall;  in  Germany 
Protestantism  was  claiming  and  fighting  for  the 
succession,  while  France  was  following  Italy  in 
its  progressive  corruption,  England  still  standing 
firm  behind  her  Channel  cliffs  that  seemed  so  well 
to  defend  her  against  spiritual  as  well  as  physical 
invasion.  All  things  were  changing,  a  new  era 
was  establishing  itself,  but  Maximilian  was  not 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  211 

content  to  see  the  old  depart  without  a  struggle, 
nor  was  his  son  Charles  when  he  succeeded  him. 
In  the  voluminous  correspondence  that  has  been 
preserved  between  the  Emperor  and  his  Regent 
of  the  Netherlands  there  is  an  astounding  letter 
which  reveals  the  almost  insane  lengths  to  which 
the  imagination  could  go  in  these  overstimulated 
times;  in  it  Maximilian  confesses  that  he  has  a 
great  scheme  for  the  redemption  of  Europe  and  it 
is  this:  he,  himself,  is  to  be  made  a  kind  of  coad- 
jutor to  the  Pope  (Julius  II,  then  ill),  whereupon 
he  will  surrender  the  Empire  to  his  son  Charles, 
and  then  when  Julius  shall  die,  be  made  Pope  in 
his  place,  thus  uniting  all  spiritual  and  temporal 
power  in  the  persons  of  the  Hapsburg  father  and 
son! 

He  wouldn't  have  made  a  bad  Pope,  this  shrewd, 
crusading,  idealistic  Maximilian,  certainly  he 
would  have  been  a  better  than  the  Alexander  VI, 
Julius  II,  Leo  X  type  then  in  vogue,  and  the 
vision  of  Maximilian  in  the  chair  of  Peter,  with 
Charles  V  the  temporal  lord  of  the  world,  is 
stimulating  and  provocative  of  speculation  as  to 
what  might  have  happened.  However,  it  all  came 
to  nothing;  Julius  recovered,  and  was  succeeded 
in  1513  by  Leo  X,  who  reigned  furiously  for  eight 


HEART  OF  EUROPE 

years  and  then  died,  to  be  succeeded,  not  by 
Wolsey,  who  was  exerting  every  diplomatic  and 
pecuniary  agency  to  gain  the  prize,  not  by  a  Car- 
dinal of  the  Medici  or  the  Colonna,  but  by  an 
obscure  recluse,  Adrian,  sometime  Archbishop  of 
Utrecht,  a  gentle  professor  at  Louvain  whom 
Maximilian  had  discovered  and  sent  to  Malines 
to  help  educate  the  future  Charles  V,  and  who 
had  since  been  immured  in  Spain  as  Cardinal  of 
Tortosa. 

It  was  one  of  those  kaleidoscopic  phenomena 
that  gave  an  exceeding  vivacity  to  the  age.  Into 
the  midst  of  a  line  of  Popes  distinguished  for  their 
highly  developed  and  quite  artificial  taste,  their 
rapacity  and  simony,  their  persistent  nepotism 
and  their  serene  profligacy,  came  suddenly  a  shy, 
ascetic  student,  pious,  austere,  and  simple.  Into 
the  Vatican  of  an  Alexander  VI  and  Leo  X  he 
came  with  his  old  Flemish  housekeeper,  to  the 
horror  of  the  curia,  and,  we  may  believe,  the 
sympathetic  amusement  of  the  angels.  For  a 
moment  it  seemed  as  though  the  ideal  of  Maximil- 
ian was  to  be  attained  by  more  orthodox  methods. 
Adrian  VI  set  himself  to  the  task  of  reforming 
not  alone  the  curia  but  the  whole  Church;  to 
regenerate  Catholicism  on  Catholic  lines,  defeat 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  213 

Protestantism  in  its  own  field,  restore  peace  to  the 
world.  Destiny,  however,  is  not  to  be  escaped; 
the  world  had  busily  made  its  bed  and  in  it  it  was 
destined  to  lie.  One  by  one  each  young  and 
righteous  prince  had  been  taken  away  by  death 
before  he  could  set  his  lance  in  rest  against  the 
common  enemy,  and  now  the  anomalous  Pope 
was  denied  his  self-appointed  task.  In  less  than 
two  years  he  was  dead,  Clement  VII  reigned  in 
his  stead,  and  the  world,  having  taken  a  long 
breath  of  relief,  went  on  very  much  as  before,  to 
its  inescapable  destiny. 

When  he  was  fifteen  years  old  Charles  formally 
took  over  the  government  of  the  Netherlands  and 
four  years  later  he  was  elected  to  the  Empire, 
becoming  Charles  V,  but  Margaret  still  remained 
at  the  head  of  the  Council  of  Regency  of  the  Neth- 
erlands. In  the  wars  between  the  Emperor  and 
Francis  I,  the  Netherlands  escaped  as  the  fight- 
ing was  elsewhere,  and  their  peace  and  prosperity 
remained  practically  unbroken.  In  the  end  Mar- 
garet crowned  her  career  by  initiating  and  com- 
pleting the  "Ladies'  Peace,"  which  resulted  in 
the  treaty  of  Cambrai.  Francis  I  had  already 
been  completely  beaten  by  the  Emperor,  renounc- 
ing his  claims  over  Flanders  and  Artois  and 


214  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

promising  to  keep  the  peace,  but  he  promptly 
broke  all  his  engagements  and  had  to  be  beaten 
again,  very  thoroughly  this  time,  with  further 
disastrous  results  to  the  remains  of  Christian 
culture,  for  Clement  VII  had  joined  with  Francis 
against  the  Empire,  and  Rome  was  stormed  and 
sacked  by  the  lawless  troops  of  the  Constable  of 
Bourbon,  unfortunately  killed  in  the  assault, 
amidst  appalling  scenes  of  murder,  arson,  and 
pillage,  when  untold  wealth  of  ancient  art  was 
utterly  destroyed.  The  whole  war  was  a  scandal 
on  the  name  of  decency  and  more  than  Margaret 
and  the  other  decent  women  could  bear,  so  she 
proposed  to  the  Emperor  that  she  should  under- 
take to  make  peace,  and  actually  succeeded  in 
doing  so,  with  the  aid  of  Louise  of  Savoy,  mother 
of  King  Francis,  Marguerite  of  France,  Queen 
of  Navarre,  and  Marie  of  Luxembourg,  Countess 
of  Vendome. 

Margaret's  work  was  apparently  finished.  All 
her  brother's  children  had  been  guarded,  educated, 
and  married,  Eleanore  to  the  King  of  Portugal, 
Isabelle  to  the  King  of  Denmark,  Marie  to  the 
King  of  Hungary,  while  Ferdinand  who  had  been 
educated  in  Spain  had  married  Anne  of  Hungary 
and  received  from  his  brother,  the  Emperor,  the 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  215 

throne  of  Austria,  to  which  were  added  Bohemia 
and  Hungary  after  the  great  beating  back  of  the 
Turks  from  Vienna  in  1529,  since  King  Louis, 
husband  of  Marie,  had  lost  his  life  in  the  terrible 
disaster  of  the  battle  of  Mohacs  in  1526,  when  for 
the  moment  the  Moslems  had  been  victorious 
and  had  threatened  all  Europe  from  the  field 
where  20,000  had  laid  down  their  lives  in  a  vain 
attempt  to  stem  the  heathen  tide. 

As  for  her  imperial  nephew  Charles,  he  was  now 
the  unquestioned  head  of  the  Holy  Roman  Em- 
pire and  leader  of  Christendom;  on  February  24, 
1530,  he  was  solemnly  crowned  by  the  Pope, 
in  Bologna,  with  the  Iron  Crown  of  Lombardy 
and  the  crown  of  Charlemagne.  Peace  of  sorts, 
had  settled  on  Europe,  and  it  was  a  peace  of 
Margaret's  own  making.  The  Lutheran  heresy 
was  sullen  and  threatening,  but  thus  far  there 
was  no  actual  violence.  There  was  a  pause  in  the 
ominous  progress  of  events,  and  tired,  apprehen- 
sive Margaret  determined  to  resign  her  charge 
to  the  Emperor,  who  was  coming  from  his  crown- 
ing to  visit  her  in  Malines,  and  retire  to  one  of 
the  convents  she  herself  had  founded.  She  had 
earned  the  peace  she  desired,  and  a  greater  peace, 
which  was  accorded  her  by  the  grace  of  God, 


216  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

for  on  November  30,  1530,  she  died  from  an 
overdose  of  opium  given  her  by  her  physicians 
in  preparation  for  an  operation  that  had  become 
necessary,  owing  to  an  injury  to  a  foot  which 
had  not  been  properly  treated. 

She  died  as  she  had  lived,  thoughtful  for  others, 
generous,  meek  in  spirit,  sincerely  and  devotedly 
a  Catholic.  All  the  Netherlands  mourned  for  her 
as  a  righteous  and  able  governor  and,  after  the 
imposing  funeral  services  in  Bruges,  she  was 
carried  through  the  snow,  along  the  road  she  had 
followed  on  her  wedding  journey,  thirty  years  be- 
fore, to  the  church  at  Brou,  where  she  was  placed 
by  the  side  of  the  husband,  who  had  been  hers 
for  so  few  years,  and  for  love  of  whom  she  had 
built  the  most  beautiful  shrine  in  Europe. 

The  church  at  Brou  is  the  last  of  Gothic  art, 
and  Margaret  of  Austria,  by  the  love  of  her 
people,  Margaret  of  Malines,  was  the  last  of  the 
great  and  righteous  and  pious  women  of  the  age 
that  had  made  this  art  its  own. 

With  the  passing  of  Margaret,  Malines  ceased 
to  be  the  capital  of  the  Netherlands,  but  for 
compensation  in  some  sort  it  was  made  an  arch- 
bishopric; and  though  its  great  palaces  have 
passed  with  its  glory,  the  hoarded  art  and  the 


A    DETAIL    FROM    THE  CHURCH    AT    BROU 


MARGARET  OF  MALINES  217 

marvellous  library  of  the  Regent  gone  to  feed  the 
fires  of  sacrilege  or  enrich  the  galleries  of  the  utter- 
most parts  of  the  earth,  though  its  wealth  is  no 
more  and  throngs  of  finely  clad  burghers  and 
merchants  no  longer  enrich  its  winding  streets 
with  the  pageant  of  a  wedded  Medievalism  and 
Renaissance,  out  of  this  ecclesiastical  aggrandise- 
ment has  come  in  these  later  days  a  new  honour 
to  Malines;  for  when  war  and  pillage  again  swept 
it  with  the  flames  of  hell,  it  was  the  Cardinal  of 
Malines,  Archbishop  Mercier,  who  dared  to  stand 
forth  and  defy  the  spoiler,  while  shaming  his  too- 
cautious  ecclesiastical  superior,  weighing,  vacil- 
lating, counting  costs  and  profits  in  the  midst  of 
his  buzzing  curia. 

The  Heart  of  Europe,  pierced  by  the  sword 
and  shedding  the  life-blood  that  had  coursed  for 
a  thousand  years  through  the  arteries  of  the 
world,  knew  that  the  hour  of  the  eternal  question 
had  come,  that  the  clean  division  between  right 
and  wrong  had  been  cut  by  the  sword,  that  once 
more  the  Voice  had  gone  forth:  "He  that  is  not 
with  Me  is  against  Me,"  and  that  there  was  no 
longer  place  on  earth  for  the  emasculate,  the 
neuter,  in  the  catchword  parlance  of  the  time, 
the  neutral.  Peter  shuddered  and  hesitated  on 


218  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

the  throne  of  the  Fisherman;  great  nations  out- 
side the  widening  ring  of  fire  counted  the  cost  and 
dreamed  day-dreams  of  arbitration  and  pacifica- 
tion, but  once  again  Malines  spoke,  as  in  the  past, 
with  the  tongue  of  the  past — and  of  the  future. 
Mercier  of  Malines  spoke  for  God  and  his  own 
people,  and  for  the  righteousness  that  is  eternal, 
as  four  centuries  ago  spoke  Margaret  of  Malines. 


XI 

THE   FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS 

THE  history,  the  principles,  the  motives,  the 
methods  of  that  mode  of  art  which  expresses 
itself  in  pictorial  form  are  involved  in  more  error 
and  misrepresentation  than  happens  in  the  case 
of  any  of  its  allies.  For  this  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  particularly  the  Teutonic  nine- 
teenth century,  with  its  inability  to  understand 
art  in  any  form  save  that  of  music,  is  chiefly 
responsible.  Every  effort  has  been  made  to  iso- 
late it  as  an  independent  form  of  art,  to  confine 
it  to  "easel  painting"  on  panel  or  canvas,  or  to 
wall  decorations  conceived  after  the  same  fashion 
and  on  the  same  lines,  to  reduce  it  to  certain 
schools  and  individuals  and  localities;  in  a  word, 
to  make  it  a  highly  specialised  form  of  personal 
expression,  like  lyric  poetry  or  theological  heresy. 
This  is  to  miss  its  essential  character  and  deny 
its  primary  function. 

Painting  is  the  use   of  colour   and   the   com- 
position of  lines  and  forms  for  sheer  joy  in  this 

219 


220  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

particular  kind  of  beauty;  for  the  honouring  of 
the  most  honourable  things;  for  the  stimulating  of 
high  and  fine  human  emotion;  for  the  symbolical 
(and  therefore  sacramental)  expression  of  spiritual 
adventures  and  experiences  that  so  far  transcend 
the  limitations  of  the  material  that  they  are  not 
susceptible  of  intellectual  manifestation.  Paint- 
ing is  primarily  and  in  its  highest  estate  an  ally 
and  an  aid  of  architecture,  as  are  also  sculpture 
and  (in  a  less  intimate  degree)  music,  poetry,  and 
the  drama,  all  working  together  for  the  building 
up,  under  the  inspiration  of  religion,  of  a  great 
stimulus  and  a  great  expression.  As  a  thing  by 
itself  it  fails  of  half  its  power,  but,  like  all  the  arts, 
it  can  be  used  in  this  way,  though  indifferently 
and  only  within  certain  limitations.  To  say, 
therefore,  that  painting  as  an  art  began  with 
Giotto  or  Cimabue  or  Duccio,  is  absurd;  there 
was  great  painting  long  before  them,  and  some  of 
it  reached  heights  even  they  could  not  attain. 
Of  course  most  of  it  is  gone,  vanishing  with  the 
destroyed  or  remodelled  buildings,  where  it  worked 
intimately  with  architecture,  scraped  off  by  "re- 
storers," whitewashed  by  iconoclasts,  done  over 
by  easel  painters,  so  it  is  hard  to  judge  it  justly, 
but  a  few  fragments  remain  in  France  and  Italy 


THE  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS 

that  give  some  idea  of  its  original  power  and 
beauty. 

Similarly,  illumination  is  not  a  handicraft  or  an 
industrial  art;  it  was  frequently  great  art  of  a 
very  distinguished  quality,  and  so  was  the  paint- 
ing of  carving  and  sculpture,  an  art  not  disdained 
by  the  Van  Eycks  themselves.  From  the  earliest 
beginnings  of  the  Middle  Ages  there  was  great 
painting,  and  the  Duccios  and  Massaccios  and 
Memlings  only  added  to  it  certain  different,  and 
not  always  admirable,  qualities,  while  devising 
novel  methods  that  made  possible  novel  modes 
of  expression. 

And  here  enters  another  misconception  that 
has  done  much  harm:  the  Van  Eycks  did  not 
invent  oil  painting,  if  by  the  phrase  is  meant  the 
oil  painting  of  the  nineteenth  century.  This,  the 
use  of  mechanically  ground  pigments  already 
mixed  with  an  oil  medium,  is  a  trick  hardly  more 
than  a  century  old,  and  is  a  time-saving  device  for 
the  obtaining  (which  it  does  not  succeed  in  doing), 
at  the  least  expenditure  of  time  and  thought,  of 
the  effects  originally  produced  by  the  old  method 
that  held  from  the  time  of  Hubert  Van  Eyck  down 
to  that  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  This  old  method 
consisted  in  dividing  the  work  of  a  painter  into 


222  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

three  stages — drawing,  modelling,  colouring — each 
of  which  had  to  be  done  laboriously  and  to  perfec- 
tion. After  the  picture  had  been  drawn  completely 
and  in  every  detail  it  was  modelled  in  a  thick  un- 
derpainting  of  impasto  with  its  varied  reliefs  and 
textures,  and  then  the  colour  was  applied;  succes- 
sive coats  of  transparent  pigment,  one  imposed 
on  the  other,  each  being  allowed  to  dry  before 
the  next  was  put  on.  The  result  was,  amongst 
other  things,  that  depth,  resonance,  and  transpar- 
ency of  colour  that  mark  the  great  painting  of  the 
past  and  are  absolutely  unobtainable  by  the  use  of 
the  opaque  and  muddy  pigments  squeezed  out  of 
collapsible  tubes.  In  this  earlier  method  there  was 
no  short  road  to  success;  a  painter  could  not  sweep 
in  his  broad  masses  of  paint  with  a  few  masterly 
strokes,  masking  his  lack  of  proficiency  in  drawing 
by  daring  and  theatrical  brush  work,  and  making 
amends  for  his  opaque  and  unbeautiful  colour 
by  a  stunning  exhibition  of  a  delusive  chiaro- 
oscuro.  Everything  was  built  up  laboriously  and 
conscientiously;  it  was  consummate  craftsmanship, 
with  much  in  common  with  stained  glass,  orfeverie, 
and  even  with  architecture.  No  wonder  a  painter's 
training  frequently  began  with  a  goldsmith;  it  de- 
manded the  most  exquisite  and  conscientious  craft 


THE  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS    223 

and  there  was  no  substitute  that  a  public  trained 
in  eye  and  quick  in  appreciation  could  be  induced 
to  accept.  Temperament  was  no  excuse  for  in- 
capacity; daring  brush  work  made  no  amends  for 
lack  of  competence;  for  once  painting  was  on  a 
par  with  the  other  arts,  and  a  painter  was  as  much 
a  master  of  craft,  and  as  rigidly  held  to  its  high- 
est standards,  as  a  musician  or  a  master  builder. 

Of  course  there  always  had  been  fresco-paint- 
ing, and  here  the  method  was  quite  different,  for 
the  colour  had  to  be  applied  swiftly  and  once  for 
all  to  the  wet  plaster.  Here  the  technique  was 
direct  and  instantaneous,  quite  unlike  that  of 
panel  painting,  and  though  it  was  no  more  adapt- 
able to  the  vagaries  of  temperamental  expression, 
it  opened  up  new  possibilities  of  which  painters 
were  always  trying  to  take  advantage.  Giotto 
himself,  being  the  greatest  master  of  this  partic- 
ular mode,  was  always  working  along  these  lines, 
and  later  Velasquez  combined  them  with  the 
possibilities  inherent  in  the  development  of  under- 
painting  as  a  thing  final  in  itself,  without  the 
laborious  and  studied  glazing  of  successive  coats 
of  pure  colour. 

The  art  of  painting  was  never  a  rigid  and  im- 
mobile system;  every  painter  was  striving  for 


HEART  OF  EUROPE 

new  methods  and  new  developments,  and  fre- 
quently finding  them;  in  the  end,  as  the  old 
artistic  sense  died  away,  virtuosity  took  its  place, 
and  this  found  its  opportunity  through  the  elim- 
ination of  all  the  old  elements  of  craftsmanship 
and  a  development  of  the  qualities  of  breadth 
and  swiftness  inherent  in  fresco-painting,  to- 
gether with  the  dash  and  bravura  that  offered 
themselves  through  the  clever  manipulation  of 
the  thick  and  solid  and  suave  material  of  the  old 
underpainting.  In  a  word,  the  tendency  was 
toward  combining  drawing,  modelling,  and  colour 
in  one  process,  obtaining  final  effects  in  one 
operation;  and  while  this  meant  a  possible  slouch- 
ing of  drawing,  a  substitution  of  surprise  and 
bravado  for  consistent  modelling,  a  loss  of  all 
depth  and  resonance  of  colour,  and  the  putting  of 
a  premium  on  such  quite  unimportant  (and  some- 
times vicious)  matters  as  dashing  brush  work,  it 
must  be  admitted  it  did  permit  "temperament" 
to  express  itself  with  a  swiftness  and  mobility 
impossible  before,  granting  always  that  this  is 
desirable. 

Now  in  the  working  of  this  revolution  the  Van 
Eycks  had  no  part  whatever.  They  did  not  in- 
vent "oil  painting"  or  anything  like  it.  They 


THE  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS    225 

were  the  greatest  painter-craftsmen  ever  known, 
and  they  and  the  generations  that  followed  them 
in  Flanders  and  Italy  held  faithfully  to  the  old 
threefold  mode  of  operation  until  Tintoretto, 
Velasquez,  and  Rubens  began  to  merge  the  three 
in  one  and  to  lay  the  foundations  for  the  present 
lamentable  subterfuges  of  the  Salon  and  the 
Royal  Academy.  What  they  did  do  was  this: 
until  Hubert's  time  every  painter  had  been 
searching  for  some  medium  which  would  not 
mitigate  the  perfect  transparency  of  their  hand- 
ground  colours  and  would  dry  quickly.  All  kinds 
of  viscous  things  had  been  employed — white  of 
egg,  fig  juice,  and  other  less  seemly  media — but 
none  was  wholly  satisfactory.  Oil  was  the  natural 
thing,  but  oil  was  an  unconscionable  time  in  dry- 
ing. Hubert  Van  Eyck  found  some  oil  medium 
(or  varnish)  that  dried  quickly  and  this  at  once 
became  the  universal  medium.  It  was  a  great 
discovery  and  a  great  boon,  but  it  had  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  "oil  painting,"  which  did 
not  actually  come  into  existence  until  the  dark 
days  of  the  late  eighteenth  or  early  nineteenth 
century,  therefore  the  skirts  of  the  Van  Eycks 
are  clear  and  we  can  absolve  them  of  all  respon- 
sibility. 


226  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

There  never  was  a  school  of  such  consummate 
craftsmanship  as  this  of  Flanders.  The  Van 
Eycks,  Memling,  Van  der  Weyden  were  the  most 
perfectly  trained,  the  most  comprehensively  com- 
petent, and  the  most  conscientiously  laborious 
artists  ever  known;  also  they  understood  drawing, 
composition,  and  lighting  as  no  others  ever  did, 
while  their  sense  of  beauty  of  colour,  either  in  it- 
self or  in  subtle  and  splendid  combinations,  was 
unique.  They  were  not  portents,  sudden  meteors 
shooting  across  a  dark  sky,  they  simply  continued 
and  developed  a  long  and  glorious  tradition. 
Long  before  them  the  monasteries  had  been  pro- 
ducing great  art  of  every  kind — frescos,  illumina- 
tions, stained  glass,  embroidery,  painted  sculpture 
— and  it  was  all  art  of  the  greatest.  When  Hubert 
painted  the  "Adoration  of  the  Lamb,"  he  merely 
gathered  together  all  these  arts  and  manifested 
his  enormous  and  astounding  synthesis  in  con- 
centrated form,  and  better  than  any  one  had  ever 
done  before.  All  the  intricate  delicacy  of  jewel 
work,  all  the  vivacity  of  clean-cut  sculpture,  all 
the  suavity  of  silken  needlework,  all  the  flaming 
splendour  of  stained  glass  are  brought  together 
here  in  one  astonishing  combination,  and  to  this 
era-making  synthesis  is  added  the  living  light 


OUR    LADY,    FROM    THE   TRYPTICH    AT   GHENT 
HUBERT   VAN    EYCK 


THE  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS    227 

and  the  human  appeal  of  the  poignant  beauty  of 
the  world,  and  the  transcendent  magic  of  the  super- 
natural, sacramentally  and  visibly  set  forth. 

This,  which  very  well  may  be  the  greatest  pic- 
ture in  the  world  (it  does  not  matter),  was  ordered 
from  Hubert  Van  Eyck  when  he  was  nearly  fifty 
years  old,  he  having  been  born  about  1366  in  the 
province  of  Limbourg  and  coming  of  a  long  line 
of  painters.  It  was  ordered  by  Jodocus  Vydts, 
a  worthy  burgher  of  Ghent,  as  an  altar-piece  for 
a  chapel  he  had  built  and  endowed  (according 
to  the  pious  and  admirable  practice  of  those  good 
Catholic  times)  in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Bavon. 
For  ten  years  he  worked  at  his  masterpiece,  and 
then  death  overtook  him  in  the  year  1426,  when 
his  work  was  only  partly  finished,  when  his 
brother,  Jan,  took  it  up  and  brought  it  to  a 
triumphant  conclusion  in  1432.  It  is  a  great  trip- 
tych of  twenty -two  painted  panels  and  its  pres- 
ervation has  been  nothing  short  of  miraculous. 
Philip  II  tried  to  carry  it  off  in  1558,  the  Protes- 
tants to  destroy  it  in  1566,  and  the  Calvinists  to 
give  it  away  to  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1578.  It  was 
nearly  destroyed  by  fire  in  1641,  dismembered 
and  packed  away  in  1781,  carried  off  (parts  of  it) 
to  Paris  in  1794.  In  1816  most  of  the  wings  were 


228  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

sold  to  a  shrewd  dealer  for  $20,000  and  by  him  to 
the  Berlin  Museum  for  $80,000;  finally  the  Adam 
and  Eve  panels  were  taken  to  the  Brussels  Mu- 
seum, and  a  set  of  copies  attached  to  the  mutilated 
remainder  in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Bavon. 

The  work  is  one  vast,  comprehensive,  and  sacra- 
mental manifestation  of  the  central  Catholic 
sacrament  of  the  mass,  searching  and  final  in  its 
symbolism,  consummate  in  its  mastery  of  all  the 
elements  that  enter  into  the  make-up  of  a  great 
work  of  pictorial  and  decorative  art,  unapproached 
and  unapproachable  in  its  splendour  of  living 
and  radiant  colour.  In  its  philosophical  grasp, 
its  technical  perfection,  its  unearthly  beauty,  its 
communication  of  the  very  essence  of  a  funda- 
mental mystery,  and  in  its  evocative  power 
it  staggers  the  imagination  and  takes  its  place 
amongst  the  few  great  works  of  man,  in  any  cate- 
gory, which  are  so  far  beyond  what  seems  possible 
of  achievement  that  they  rank  as  definitely  super- 
human. So  far  as  its  spiritual  content  is  con- 
cerned, it  can  no  more  be  estimated  than  can  the 
mass  itself,  or  paraphrased  in  words  than  Chartres 
Cathedral  or  a  Brahms  symphony  or  the  Venus 
of  Melos.  If  the  Van  Eycks  are  responsible  for 
this,  they  rank  with  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and 


THE  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS    229 

Shakespeare  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci  as  the  great- 
est creative  forces  amongst  men.  Of  course  they 
were  not,  nor  the  others,  named.  Somehow  each 
was  used  by  something  greater  than  he:  the  con- 
centrated consciousness  of  his  fellows,  the  under- 
lying and  informing  time-spirit  of  an  era — or  why 
not  God  Himself? — as  a  channel  through  which 
and  by  which  absolute  truth  was  communicated 
to  man  who,  of  his  own  motion,  can  do  much,  but 
not  so  much  as  this. 

For  the  consummate  artistry,  for  the  perfect 
sense  of  decoration  and  composition,  the  keen 
and  exquisite  line,  the  perception  and  recording 
of  diversified  character,  the  poignant  love  of  all 
natural  beauty  and  corresponding  rejection  of 
all  ugliness,  for  the  technique  which  is  that  of  a 
master  in  the  fashioning  of  precious  metals  and 
the  cutting  of  priceless  gems,  for  the  colour  that  is 
now  resonant  with  all  the  deep  splendour  of  great 
music,  now  thin  and  aerial  with  all  the  delicacy 
of  far  horizons  and  misty  forests  at  some  pale 
dawn  in  a  land  of  dreams — for  all  these  things  we 
may  remember  Hubert  Van  Eyck  and  his  brother 
Jan,  for  this  is  their  work,  but  beyond  this  we  go 
elsewhere,  at  least  as  far  as  the  mass  itself,  for  the 
inspiration  that  has  made  this  Flemish  triptych 


230  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

one  of  the  great,  revealing  creations  of  the  world. 
The  infinite  variety  of  conception  and  rendition 
simply  transcend  experience.  The  three  great, 
dominating  figures — God  the  Father,  Our  Lady, 
and  St.  John  Baptist — are  of  a  Byzantine  maj- 
esty transfused  by  a  passionate  humanism  that  is 
almost  unique  in  any  form.  From  them  you  pass 
to  the  central  panel  of  the  "Worship  of  the  Lamb 
That  Was  Slain,"  which  is  as  tender  and  personal 
and  human  as  the  best  of  Fra  Angelico,  and,  like 
his  clear  visions,  irradiated  by  a  kind  of  paradisal 
glory  that  sets  it  in  a  heaven  of  its  own;  from  this 
you  go  to  the  panels  of  singing  angels  and  splen- 
did attendant  knights  and  marching  pilgrims  that 
are  pages  out  of  the  daily  record  of  life  in  proud 
and  beautiful  Bruges,  and  finally  you  come  to 
the  Adam  and  Eve  who  are  sheer,  unadulterated 
realism  unapproachable  in  its  minute  veracity. 
Surely,  these  two  men  were  a  type  of  the  universal 
genius.  They  balked  at  nothing  and  found 
nothing  too  difficult  of  accomplishment,  simply 
because  they  were  perfectly  trained  and  broadly 
accomplished  craftsmen  who  knew  that  theirs 
was  an  exacting  and  a  jealous  craft  for  which 
"temperament" —artistic  or  otherwise — was  not, 
and  could  not  be  made,  a  substitute. 


THE  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS    231 

It  is  with  a  feeling  almost  of  relief  that  we 
come  down  nearer  the  earth  and  confront  the 
masterpieces  of  Jan  Van  Eyck.  With  Hubert 
we  are  taken  into  a  kind  of  seventh  heaven  of 
mystical  revelation;  with  his  brother  and  those 
that  follow  we  come  back  to  what  is  more  human, 
more  in  scale  with  experience.  Great  art  still, 
as  great  as  one  can  find  elsewhere,  and  with  all 
the  mastery  of  methods,  all  the  confident  cer- 
tainty, all  the  triumphant  colour  and  the  ex- 
quisite design  and  the  faultless  craftsmanship  of 
the  painted  "Beatific  Vision"  itself.  There  once 
were  many  other  pictures  by  Hubert  Van  Eyck, 
but  all  now  are  gone,  destroyed  by  the  savage 
hands  of  Calvinists  and  Revolutionaries,  and  the 
"Adoration  of  the  Lamb"  remains  alone  as  an 
isolated  miracle. 

Jan  was  of  another  sort;  equally  great  as  a 
craftsman,  he  was  a  fine  gentleman,  a  courtier, 
the  friend  of  princes,  and  a  diplomat.  In  those 
barbarous  days  before  the  culmination  of  the  era 
of  enlightenment,  art  was  not  a  cult,  isolated 
from  life,  nor  were  artists  a  sort  of  creature  apart, 
made  so  by  the  possession  of  a  then  undiscovered 
and  quite  pathological  affliction  called  the  "artistic 
temperament."  They  were  good  citizens  and  an 


232  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

integral  part  of  a  like-minded  community,  serving 
their  kind  after  many  fashions,  amongst  them 
being  the  honourable  and  admirable  craft  of  art. 
Of  this  craft  Jan  was  past  master;  he  painted 
statues  and  illuminated  missals  and  fashioned 
stained  glass;  he  created  great  altar-pieces  and 
produced  living  portraits  of  old  ecclesiastics  and 
worthy  burghers  and  their  wives;  for  all  I  know 
he  was  an  architect  as  well — at  all  events  he  might 
have  been,  as  is  proved  by  the  wonderful  drawing 
of  St.  Barbara  with  its  background  of  a  great 
Gothic  tower  under  construction.  A  thoroughly 
typical  example  of  his  painting  is  the  St.  Donatian 
altar-piece,  a  votive  picture  ordered  by  the  ex- 
cellent old  Canon  Van  der  Paele,  who  is  shown  in 
adoration  before  Our  Lady  and  the  Holy  Child 
and  attended  by  St.  Donatian  himself  and  St. 
George.  Mr.  Berenson  could  find  no  finer  ex- 
ample than  this  of  that  "space  composition"  on 
which  he  rightly  lays  such  stress;  Holbein  could 
paint  no  more  exact  and  characteristic  portraits; 
all  the  goldsmiths  of  Byzantium  could  not  rival 
the  jewel  work  of  armour  and  orphreys,  brocades 
and  embroideries,  and  sculptures  and  inlays,  while 
the  colour,  both  in  its  individual  parts  and  its 
composition,  comes  nearer  the  living  light  of  the 


A    DRAWING    OF   ST.    BARBARA,    JAN    VAN    EYCK 


THE  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS    233 

windows  of  Chartres  than  any  other  painted  colour 
in  the  world.  One  would  like  to  hang  this  partic- 
ular picture  (for  a  time  only,  then  replacing  it 
over  an  altar  where  alone  it  belongs)  in  the  midst 
of  a  "Rubens  Gallery,"  or  a  room  in  the  Luxem- 
bourg or  the  Royal  Academy,  and  call  all  the 
world  to  see. 

There  is  little  enough  left  of  Jan's  work,  and 
for  the  same  humiliating  reason  that  holds  in 
the  case  of  his  brother.  Of  Hans  Memling,  an- 
other wonder  child,  there  is  fortunately  much. 
When  one  catalogues  the  list  of  this  earliest  and 
greatest  work  in  Flanders  and  recalls  the  wrecking 
with  axe  and  torch  of  cathedrals,  abbeys,  con- 
vents, hospitals,  chateaux  by  Calvinists  and  sans- 
culottes; the  pyres  of  smouldering  pictures,  the 
ditches  filled  up  with  pulverised  glass,  shattered 
statues,  illuminated  missals  and  graduales  and 
books  of  hours;  the  sacred  vessels  and  gorgeous 
vestments,  such  as  Hubert  and  Jan,  Hans  and 
Gerard  showed  in  their  pictures,  despoiled  of 
their  splendid  jewels  (transferred  for  a  considera- 
tion to  Hebrew  brokers)  and  melted  down  or 
used  for  chair  covers,  as  the  case  may  be;  and 
when  in  this  lurid  light  one  weighs  the  thick  hides 
and  the  muddled  brains  and  the  shrivelled  souls 


234  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

of  the  wreckers  against  even  the  mere  artistic  value 
of  their  spoils,  one  marvels  still  more  at  the  won- 
ders of  scientific  evolution  and  the  promises  of 
evolutionary  philosophy. 

Memling  is  the  third  of  the  great  trio  of  Flem- 
ings, and  though  there  were  innumerable  others 
whose  art  was  near  perfection,  these  three  stand 
for  ever  by  themselves  apart.  There  is  more  of 
human  tenderness  in  his  work  and  a  certain 
spiritualisation  informing  everything  that  gives 
a  different  quality;  the  portraiture  and  differ- 
entiation of  character  are  possibly  beyond  what 
any  other  ever  attained,  but  his  composition  as 
it  gains  in  complexity  and  facile  ease  loses  some- 
thing of  that  broad  and  powerful  directness,  that 
supreme  quality  of  rhythm  and  serenity  that 
marked  the  Van  Eycks.  The  colour  also  is  less 
invariably  sonorous,  less  pure  and  splendid  and 
luminous  both  in  its  single  tones  and  its  har- 
monies, while  now  and  then  the  universal  Flemish 
passion  for  sumptuous  stuffs  and  gorgeous  pat- 
terns and  glittering  accessories  betrays  him  into 
a  loss  of  unity  and  balance.  Still,  any  criticism 
is  impudent;  his  St.  Ursula  series,  his  St.  John 
Baptist,  his  St.  Bertin  and  Floreins  and  Moreel 
altar-pieces  are  amongst  the  greatest  pictures 


From  a  photograph  by  Hanfstaengl 


A    MEMLING    ALTAR-PIECE 


THE  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS    235 

have  been  painted,  while  his  portraits  are  pure 
life  expressed  through  the  terms  of  pure  beauty. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  review  all  the  work 
of  all  the  great  Flemings.  Driven  by  the  same 
impulse,  each  gave  his  own  personality  to  all  he 
did,  and  the  sequence  is  as  astonishing  as  it  is 
priceless.  Gerard,  David,  Roger  Van  der  Weyden, 
Quentin  Metsys,  Dierick  Bouts,  Lucas  Cranach, 
as  well  as  numberless  unknown  whose  work  sur- 
vives their  contemporary  fame,  all  reached  their 
several  heights  of  attainment  on  their  own  in- 
dividual lines,  and  their  pictures  still  remain 
in  Bruges  and  Ghent,  in  Brussels  and  Antwerp 
(or  remain  to-day,  in  August,  1915)  to  bear  wit- 
ness to  the  full  and  vigorous  life,  the  wholesome 
and  happy  religious  devotion,  the  astonishing 
physical  beauty  of  Flemish  environment  of  those 
last  years  of  the  fifteenth  century  in  Europe  when 
the  fair  day  of  medievalism  came  to  its  golden 
close. 

Between  this  whole-souled  art  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  that  of  the  Renaissance  came  an  in- 
tervening group  that  served  to  effect  the  neces- 
sary modulation  from  one  key  to  quite  another. 
Mabeuse,  Van  Orley,  the  younger  Porbus,  and  l!ie 
Breughels  are  the  chief  representatives  and 


236  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

them  one  sees  the  old  and  masculine  qualities 
dying  away,  the  new  and  alien  elements  from  the 
south  entering  in  to  take  possession.  When  this 
transition  was  effected  it  was  in  Holland  that  it 
found  its  opportunity,  and  as  the  Dutch  provinces 
are  outside  our  consideration  we  need  not  con- 
sider here  the  products  of  a  school  that  ranged 
in  quality  from  Rubens  to  Rembrandt,  from 
Frans  Hals  to  Vermeer  of  Delft.  The  succession 
was  broken,  the  torch  (with  whatever  flame  that 
remained)  was  passed  from  the  Flemings  to  the 
Dutch,  and  only  Vandyck  appeared  in  the  line 
of  true  Flemish  descent  to  demonstrate  the  pos- 
sibilities that  still  remained  in  spite  of  Rubens 
(and  at  the  hands  of  his  own  pupil)  for  the  develop- 
ment of  a  restrained  and  self-respecting  and  beauti- 
ful art,  even  though  the  moving  spirit  had  been 
dissolved  and  the  great  tradition  become  no  more 
than  a  memory.  The  great  period  of  mediaeval 
painting  (for  it  was  this  in  spirit  and  in  truth) 
had  begun  and  ended  in  this  Cor  Cordium,  this 
Flemish  concentration  of  the  Heart  of  Europe. 
It  had  begun  with  the  monkish  illuminations  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  culminated  in  the  great 
century  from  1395,  when  Hubert  Van  Eyck  be- 
gan to  paint,  to  1494,  when  Memling  died,  and 


From  a  photograph  by  Hanfstaengl 

MADONNA   AND   CHILD   WITH    ST.    LUKE,    VAN    DER    WEYDEN 


THE  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  PAINTERS    237 

slowly  disappeared  under  the  influence  of  the 
Renaissance,  the  Reformation,  and  the  Spanish 
oppression;  by  the  year  1600  it  had  ceased  to 
exist,  and  the  Renaissance,  which  had  established 
itself  in  all  secular  and  ecclesiastical  matters,  now 
took  over  art  also  for  the  purpose  of  developing 
its  own  exact  expression.  The  five  centuries  of 
Catholic  civilisation  had  come  to  an  end. 


xn 

GOTHIC   SCULPTURE 

E>NG  before  the  days  of  the  Pisani  in  Italy,  who 
were  erroneously  held  to  have  been  the  re- 
storers of  the  lost  art  of  sculpture,  France  had 
initiated  and  developed  three  great  schools,  one 
of  which  at  least  reached  greater  heights  even 
than  the  later  schools  of  Italy,  even  than  Dona- 
tello  and  Michael  Angelo  if  you  test  this  art  by 
the  established  principles  of  the  greatest  sculpture 
the  world  has  ever  known — that  of  Greece.  These 
three  were :  The  school  of  the  south  with  Toulouse 
as  a  centre,  the  school  of  Burgundy,  or  Vezelay, 
and  the  school  of  the  lie  de  France.  The  first  is 
of  the  late  eleventh  century,  the  second  of  the 
twelfth,  the  third  of  the  latter  part  of  this  cen- 
tury and  the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth.  The 
earlier  work  south  of  the  Loire  is  part  Roman, 
part  Byzantine,  and  it  occasionally  reaches,  as 
at  Moissac,  a  level  of  extraordinary  decorative 
value,  with,  in  its  bas  reliefs,  a  feeling  for  rhyth- 
mical line  and  space  composition  that  are  quite 

238 


GOTHIC  SCULPTURE  239 

astounding.  In  Burgundy,  combined  with  great 
rudeness  and  an  almost  savage  directness,  there 
is  far  greater  humanism,  with  much  action  and 
an  unusual  amount  of  character  differentiation; 
much  of  the  best  work  of  this  school  is  to  be 
found  at  Autun  and  Vezelay.  With  the  middle 
years  of  the  twelfth  century  the  sculpture  of  the 
lie  de  France  seems  suddenly  to  burst  forth  at 
St.  Denis  and  Chartres  like  some  miraculous  hap- 
pening. It  was  not  this,  but  the  result  of  many 
years  of  cumulative  and  progressive  effort;  but 
all  that  went  before  has  perished,  while  fortu- 
nately some  examples  at  St.  Denis  and  a  supreme 
collection  at  Chartres  remain  to  give  the  impres- 
sion of  an  unwonted  and  unheralded  event.  This 
sculpture  of  Chartres  is  more  superbly  architec- 
tural, more  intimately  a  part  of  the  whole  artistic 
scheme  than  any  other  on  record;  all  is  formal, 
conventionalised;  the  figures  are  erect,  rigid, 
immensely  elongated;  the  multiplied  fine  lines 
and  delicate  zigzags  of  the  drapery,  the  simple 
figure-modelling,  the  immobile,  dispassionate  faces, 
all  show  a  most  curious  self-abnegation  on  the 
part  of  the  sculptor  and  a  profound  conviction 
that  both  he  and  his  art  are  only  part  of  a  greater 
whole,  for  they  are  purely  architectural  and  in- 


240  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

deed  nothing  but  the  architectural  spirit  expressing 
itself  through  an  allied  artistic  mode.  They  are 
startlingly  akin  to  archaic  Greek  work  and,  as 
Professor  Moore  has  said  of  the  sculpture  from 
Delos:  "One  of  these  ancient  Greek  statues  might, 
if  wrought  in  French  limestone  and  slightly  modi- 
fied in  outline,  stand  in  the  west  portal  of  Chartres 
without  apparent  lack  of  keeping."  Yet  there  is 
manifestly  no  possible  point  of  historical  contact 
between  the  Hellenic  and  the  French  work,  and 
the  kinship  simply  shows  the  persistence  of  cer- 
tain ways  of  looking  at  and  feeling  about  things, 
and  the  inevitable  if  unconscious  return  of  one 
generation  to  the  ways  of  another,  that  form  a 
commentary,  both  cruel  and  humorous,  on  the 
evolutionary  philosophy  current  during  the  last 
century,  and  quite  unjustifiably  claiming  descent 
from  the  innocent  speculations  of  Darwin  and 
Herbert  Spencer. 

Out  of  this  sculpture  of  Chartres  grew  the 
very  wonderful  art  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
which  gives  a  sorely  diminished  glory  to  the 
Cathedral  of  Paris  and  gave,  a  year  ago,  a  still 
greater  glory  to  that  immortal  group  of  churches 
now  slowly  crumbling  under  gun-fire.  Very  no- 
table examples  of  the  transition  are  at  Senlis, 


GOTHIC  SCULPTURE  241 

but  they  have  been  shockingly  mutilated,  and 
only  one  of  the  two  wonderful  carved  lintels  still 
gives  much  idea  of  its  original  beauty.  The  panel 
of  the  "Resurrection  of  the  Virgin,"  has  all  the 
architectural  form  and  the  decorative  sense  of 
Chartres,  but  it  has  as  well  an  added  human 
quality  that  makes  it  enduringly  vital  and  ap- 
pealing. The  same  can  be  said  of  the  surrounding 
statues  and  reliefs  that  are  of  the  same  period, 
and  altogether  the  almost  unique  work  at  Senlis 
strikes  a  singularly  happy  balance,  as  sculptured 
architecture,  between  the  rigid  formalism  of  Char- 
tres and  Vezelay  and  the  exquisite  humanism  and 
the  almost  too-surpassing  art  of  Paris,  Amiens, 
and  Reims.  But  for  the  Revolution  Senlis  would 
not  have  stood  so  alone  for  sculptural  art  of  the 
transition.  Laon  once  possessed  far  more,  and 
of  an  even  higher  type,  but  all  the  column  figures 
of  the  west  doors,  and  indeed  practically  all  the 
free-standing  statues,  were  then  ruthlessly  de- 
stroyed and  those  that  have  taken  their  places 
are  merely  modern  assumptions.  The  tympana 
of  the  doors  are  original,  though  mutilated:  the 
Coronation  of  the  Virgin,  scenes  from  her  life, 
the  Last  Judgment;  while  in  the  archi volts  and 
around  the  windows  are  remains  of  singularly 


242  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

beautiful  effigies  of  the  wise  and  foolish  virgins, 
the  seven  liberal  arts,  episodes  from  the  lives  of 
the  saints.  More  or  less  of  the  original  poly- 
chromatic decoration  remains,  and  the  statues 
themselves,  even  in  their  battered  state,  are 
marvels  of  art.  Every  trace  of  archaism  and  of 
uncertainty  is  gone,  the  sculptor  works  with  a 
definiteness  and  a  certainty  of  touch  that  are 
amazing,  while  his  sense  of  the  eternally  sculp- 
turesque is  infallible.  Every  face — where  a  face 
remains — is  brilliantly  characterised;  the  poses 
are  graceful,  unaffected,  constantly  varied;  the 
gestures  are  convincing,  the  stone  quality  never 
lost,  while  there  is  nothing  outside  Hellas — ex- 
cept Amiens  and  Reims — so  faultless  in  its  com- 
position of  drapery.  From  the  very  first  this  was 
one  of  the  strong  points  in  French  sculpture; 
each  artist  strove  for,  and  attained,  not  only  dis- 
tinction, but  naturalism  expressed  through  and 
by  an  almost  classic  formalism;  the  line  com 
position,  from  Vezelay  to  Reims,  is  a  succession 
of  ever- waxing  marvels.  At  Laon  are  even  now 
mutilated  figures  that  are  as  perfect  in  their  com- 
position of  lines  and  masses  as  anything  in  Athens, 
and  the  same  was  true  of  Reims.  Personally  I 
have  always  thought  of  the  figure  work  at  Amiens 


A    HEAD,    NOW    DESTROYED,    FROM    REIMS 


GOTHIC  SCULPTURE  243 

(apart  from  the  has  reliefs)  as  less  perfect  in  this 
respect,  in  spite  of  expert  opinion,  than  that  of 
Paris,  Laon,  and  Reims;  less  brilliantly  composed, 
more  heavy  and  realistic,  while  the  figures  them- 
selves are  certainly  not  as  slender  and  graceful, 
or  so  varied  in  pose.  Moissac  and  Vezelay  are 
hieratic  abstractions,  Chartres  pure  architecture, 
Soissons  a  breathing  of  divine  life  into  ancient 
forms,  but  Laon  and  Paris  and  Reims  are  pure 
and  perfect  sculpture  against  which  no  criticism 
of  any  kind  can  be  brought.  Never  has  actual 
life  been  better  expressed  through  the  neces- 
sarily transforming  modes  of  art  than  here;  in 
these  exquisite  and  rhythmical  compositions  the 
barbarous  folly  of  the  naturalistic  and  realistic 
schools  of  modern  times  is  made  cruelly  apparent, 
and  the  base  products  of  the  average  nineteenth- 
century  practitioners  (barring  a  few  exceptions 
such  as  St.  Gaudens  at  his  best,  as  in  the  Rock 
Creek  figure)  become  in  comparison  as  absurd 
as  do  the  shameless  vulgarities  of  Bernini  and 
his  unhappy  ilk. 

There  still  remain  at  Laon  many  broken  and 
headless  fragments,  and  I  do  not  know  where 
anything  can  be  found  more  complete  in  every 
sculptural  quality.  This  is  a  great  art  at  its 


244  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

highest,  and  it  shows,  as  Reims  once  showed, 
that  in  the  early  thirteenth  century  France  pos- 
sessed an  art  of  sculpture  that  could  take  its  place 
unashamed  beside  the  best  of  the  Parthenon. 
Usually  one  thinks  of  Gothic  sculpture  in  the 
terms  of  that  late  fourteenth-century  work  so 
easily  obtainable  from  venders  of  the  remains  of 
mediaeval  art,  but  this  is  of  a  time  when  a  cold 
convention  had  killed  the  art  itself;  when  the 
subtle  curves  of  such  matchless  things  •  as  the 
statue  of  the  Virgin  from  the  north  door  of  her 
church  in  Paris  had  been  distorted  into  grotesque 
exaggeration;  when  the  thin,  close  lines  of  drapery 
had  coarsened  into  triangular  spaces  of  meaning- 
less upholstery,  and  the  sensitive,  spiritual  faces 
of  Reims  had  given  place  to  fat  attempts  at  a 
stolid  pulchritude.  This  is  not  art  but  a  trade, 
and  it  bears  no  earthly  resemblance  to  the  con- 
summate work  of  a  century  earlier,  when  the  art 
itself  and  the  religion  and  the  joy  and  the  personal 
liberty  behind  it  were  very  real  things. 

Chronologically,  the  next  great  sculpture  of 
France  is  that  of  the  Cathedral  of  Paris,  but  as  I 
have  arbitrarily  excluded  this  city  from  the  survey, 
since  one  must  stop  somewhere,  while  Paris  re- 
quires a  volume  to  itself,  it  is  only  necessary  to 


GOTHIC  SCULPTURE  245 

say  that  in  spite  of  the  devastations  of  man 
during  six  centuries,  ending  with  the  dull  bar- 
barity of  the  architect  Sufflot,  who  hacked  away 
the  trumeau  of  the  great  central  west  door,  to- 
gether with  a  large  section  of  the  tympanum  of 
the  Last  Judgment,  in  order  to  provide  a  more 
magnificent  means  of  entrance  for  processions, 
enough  still  exists  to  show  the  singular  mastery 
of  the  art.  As  for  the  statue  of  Our  Lady  on  the 
north  transept,  it  is  one  of  the  finest  works  of 
sculpture  of  any  time  or  place,  the  perfection  of 
the  drapery  finding  rivals  only  in  Greece.  It  is 
interesting  to  realise  that  this  marvellous  work 
antedates  Niccolo  Pisano  by  more  than  a  century, 
so  that  if  there  still  are  those  who  search  for  the 
origins  of  sculpture  after  the  great  blank  of  the 
Dark  Ages,  they  must  forsake  the  Renaissance 
and  Italy  and  find  what  they  sought  in  France 
during  the  culmination  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

At  Amiens  there  is  also,  over  the  south  portal, 
a  figure  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  while  it  is 
wholly  different  in  spirit  from  that  of  Paris,  it  is 
almost  as  lovely  and  even  more  delicate  and  full 
of  charm.  Paris  has  the  majesty  and  nobility  of 
Michael  Angelo,  with  nothing  of  his  high  but 
inopportune  paganism,  but  this  is  like  Mino  da 


246  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Fiesole,  with  all  his  daintiness  and  sweetness  of 
feeling,  and  added  to  this  an  almost  playful 
humanism  that  is  wonderfully  appealing.  "Le 
Beau  Dieu"  of  Amiens,  on  the  trumeau  of  the 
central  west  door,  is  almost  in  the  class  of  the 
Paris  Virgin  and  the  sculpture  of  Reims,  and  is 
perhaps  more  nearly  a  satisfactory  showing  forth 
of  Christ  in  human  form  than  any  other  work  of 
art  in  the  world.  The  whole  vast  church  is  a 
pageant  of  carven  figures — prophets,  saints,  apos- 
tles, kings,  virtues  and  vices,  symbolical  char- 
acters, scenes  from  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
the  lives  of  the  saints,  philosophy,  romance — 
every  tympanum  is  carved  in  has  relief,  and  the 
wall  below  the  columns  of  the  west  portals  is  set 
with  innumerable  medallions  of  the  signs  of  the 
zodiac  and  the  labours  of  man.  Never  was  there 
such  an  apotheosis  of  imagination,  and  only  at 
Reims  is  there  anything  a  degree  finer  as  art. 
Even  there  the  difference  is  mostly  one  of  personal 
taste;  if  you  like  the  lost  marvels  of  Reims  better 
than  the  miraculously  preserved  wonders  of  Am- 
iens, well  and  good;  it  is  for  you  to  say,  for  both 
are  matchless,  each  after  its  own  kind.  How  the 
amazing  array  of  carvings  and  statues  at  Amiens 
has  survived  passes  the  understanding;  one  would 


GOTHIC  SCULPTURE  247 

have  supposed  that  its  spiritual  emphasis,  its 
priceless  nature,  and  its  singular  beauty  would 
have  subjected  it  to  the  sequent  attentions  of 
Huguenots,  Revolutionaries,  and  the  nineteenth 
century,  but  all  have  passed  it  by;  and  even  the 
Prussians  in  their  brief  occupation  on  their  way 
to  defeat  at  the  Marne  had  no  time  to  leave  their 
mark.  Now  that  Reims  is  gone,  Amiens  must 
remain  (if  it  does  remain)  the  great  and  crowning 
exemplar  of  Christian  sculpture  at  its  highest  and 
most  triumphant  cresting  of  achievement. 

It  is  hard  to  write  of  the  sculptures  of  Reims, 
or  of  anything  dead  and  foully  mutilated.  For 
generations  the  thousands  of  carved  figures  stood 
in  their  niches  growing  grey  and  weather-worn 
through  the  passing  of  years — neglected,  unnoticed, 
despised — while  silly  effigies  were  turned  out  by 
incompetent  bunglers  to  receive  the  laudation  of 
the  haunters  of  international  expositions  and 
the  galleries  of  the  Salon.  Then  suddenly  a  dim 
light  showed  itself  and  grew  steadily  brighter 
until  at  last,  a  year  or  two  ago,  the  consciousness 
became  sure  that  here  was  one  of  the  very  great 
things  in  the  world,  one  of  the  few  supreme  prod- 
ucts of  man  in  his  highest  and  most  unfamiliar 
estate,  priceless  and  unreplaceable,  as  the  Par- 


248  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

thenon  or  the  philosophy  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
or  the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  or  the  music  of  Johann 
Sebastian  Bach.  And  the  long-delayed  knowl- 
edge came  to  us  only  to  be  turned  into  a  memory, 
the  new  possession  was  ours  only  to  be  taken  away, 
and  now  nevermore  for  ever  can  it  be  granted  to 
us  to  live  in  and  with  this  perished  art,  for  it  is 
gone  as  utterly  as  the  lost  dramas  of  Sophocles, 
the  burned  library  of  Alexandria,  the  "Last 
Supper"  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci. 

;'The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart,  c  there  is  no 
God,' "  and  the  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart:  "I  am 
greater  and  more  precious  than  silly  works  of 
art."  What  is  the  result  of  this  insolence,  the 
"Pomeranian  grenadier"  type  of  insolence  that 
exalts  an  ignorant,  degraded,  useless  hulk  of  dull 
flesh  and  blood  over  the  supreme  works  of  divinely 
inspired  men  ?  Under  the  lash  of  industrialism  he 
can  transform  coal  and  iron  into  money  values; 
he  can  fight  for  markets  overseas  where  his  mas- 
ters can  sell  articles  no  man  needs,  to  people  who 
do  not  want  them;  he  can  beget  children  after  his 
own  kind,  in  their  turn  to  do  likewise,  and  finally — 
though  this  is  not  the  appealing  argument  to  the 
partisans  of  his  essential  superiority — he  has  an 
immortal  soul  he  is  doing  his  best  to  lose,  and  fre- 


GOTHIC  SCULPTURE  249 

quently  succeeding  to  admiration.  Are  the  vile 
types  that  revealed  themselves  in  rape  and  murder 
and  mutilation  in  the  undefended  villages  of  Bel- 
gium, or  those  under  whose  orders  they  acted,  more 
worth  saving  for  further  industry  of  the  same  na- 
ture than  the  "Worship  of  the  Lamb"  in  Ghent 
or  the  sculptures  of  the  northwest  door  of  Reims  ? 
It  is  an  easy  argument  to  offer,  the  sanctity  of 
human  life,  but  it  is  not  the  motive  behind  the 
batteries  on  the  hills  to  the  east  of  the  devastated 
capital  of  Champagne,  month  after  month  pour- 
ing shell  on  the  greatest  cathedral  that  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  West  has  reared  to  the  glory  of  God. 
The  motive  behind  the  batteries  is  an  instinctive 
realisation  that  Reims  is  a  record  of  human  great- 
ness to  which  the  gunners  and  their  masters  can- 
not attain,  a  lasting  reproach  to  inferiority,  a 
sermon  and  a  prayer,  a  menace  to  bloated  self- 
sufficiency  and  to  a  baseless  pride.  Nobility  en- 
genders hate  as  well  as  reverence,  the  choice 
depends  only  on  the  nature  of  the  man  who  con- 
fronts it,  and  there  never  has  been  a  time  in  all 
history  when  decadence  did  not  bring  into  exist- 
ence a  hatred  of  all  fine  and  noble  things  that  for 
very  rage  and  resentment  willed  the  destruction  of 
the  dumb  accuser.  Reims,  and  what  Reims  stood 


250  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

for,  cannot  exist  in  the  world  together  with  their 
potent  and  efficient  negation;  therefore  Reims 
perishes,  as  has  perished  at  similar  times  in  the 
past  so  much  of  the  record  in  sublimity  and 
beauty  of  that  human  superiority  which  is  the 
silent  accuser  of  all  spiritual  and  ethical  de- 
generation. 

For  the  making  of  the  west  front  of  Reims  all 
the  great  masters  and  craftsmen  of  France  gath- 
ered together,  and  the  sculpture  showed  not  only 
greater  excellence  than  may  be  found  elsewhere, 
but  a  greater  variety  in  genius  and  personality.  It 
is  not  that  in  the  doors  of  this  fagade  were  to  be 
found  great  statues  in  conspicuous  places  with 
lesser  work  all  around;  every  piece  of  sculpture  or 
of  carving  was  a  masterpiece  of  its  kind.  High 
up  in  the  gables,  hidden  in  the  shadows  of  the 
archivolts,  forgotten  in  odd  corners  where  only 
persistent  search  would  reveal  them,  were  little 
figures  or  isolated  heads  as  carefully  thought  out 
and  as  finely  felt  as  the  august  hierarchies  of  the 
front  itself.  Personality,  varied,  vital,  distin- 
guished, marked  the  sculpture  of  Reims,  together 
with  an  unerring  sense  of  beauty  of  formalised 
line,  and  an  erudition,  a  familiarity  with  the 
Scriptures,  with  scholastic  philosophy,  with  the 


THREE    DESTROYED   FIGURES    FROM    REIMS 


GOTHIC  SCULPTURE  251 

lives  of  the  saints,  and  with  the  arts  and  sciences 
that  would  appear  to  do  away  with  the  quaint 
superstition  that  the  Middle  Ages  were  a  time  of 
intellectual  ignorance.  The  men  who  carved 
these  statues  were  not  of  the  aesthetically  elect; 
they  were  not  a  few  highly  trained,  well-dressed, 
and  supercilious  specialists,  working  in  the  con- 
fidence born  of  years  in  Paris  and  Rome;  they 
were  stone-masons,  members  of  their  own  self-re- 
specting union,  who  had  worked  their  way  up  a 
little  higher  than  their  fellows  and  so  could  carve 
each  his  group  of  statues  to  the  satisfaction  of 
bishop  or  abbot  or  master  mason  and — which 
was  even  more  to  the  point — to  his  own  satisfac- 
tion and  in  accordance  with  the  jealous  standards 
of  excellence  of  his  guild.  He  had  to  know  what 
he  was  doing  and  what  he  had  to  express;  there 
was  no  ubiquitous  architect  to  instruct  him,  no 
"committee  on  symbolism"  to  show  him  the  way, 
and  so  if  he  could  not  read  well  enough  to  enjoy 
a  modern  "yellow  journal,"  or  write  well  enough 
to  forge  a  name  or  draft  a  speculative  prospectus, 
he  did  know  far  more  about  religion,  theology,  phi- 
losophy, history,  and  the  contemporary  sciences 
and  arts  and  romances  than  the  modern  workman 
with  his  years  of  public  school  behind  him,  or 


HEART  OF  EUROPE 

many  an  architect  or  sculptor  with  his  high  school, 
preparatory  school,  and  university  training  behind 
him  as  well. 

They  knew  and  felt  and  enjoyed,  these  sculp- 
tors of  Reims,  whose  work  endured  for  six  cen- 
turies and  might  have  lasted  six  more.  Perhaps 
the  quality  of  enjoyment  was  more  clearly  ex- 
pressed than  anything  else.  Life  was  worth 
living  to  them  and  they  made  the  most  of  it,  and 
with  much  laughter.  These  carved  figures  at 
Reims  and  Amiens  and  Paris  show  in  every  line 
the  good  human  joy  of  doing  a  thing  well,  just 
as  so  much  of  the  output  of  so  much  of  modern 
industrialism  shows  the  dull  indifference  or  the 
weary  disgust  for  doing  a  thing  ill.  No  sculptor 
then  would  have  contented  himself  with  making 
a  clay  model  and  a  plaster  cast  and  then  turning 
the  execution  over  to  a  gang  of  ignorant  day- 
labourers  working  like  banderlogs,  only  with  the 
intelligent  assistance  of  mechanical  devices.  The 
artist  was  the  craftsman  and  the  art  was  a  craft, 
just  as  the  craft  was  an  art,  and  the  work  shows 
it  all  to  those  who  still  can  see.  Great  work,  the 
greatest  work,  if  you  like;  but  so  far  as  Reims  is 
concerned  it  is  now  fire-scorched  debris,  and  for 
its  loss  we  are  consoled  by  the  offer  of — another 


GOTHIC  SCULPTURE  253 

Sieges  Allee,  perhaps.  The  world  may  be  for- 
given for  thinking  that  the  game  is  not  worth 
the  candle. 

During  the  Hundred  Years'  War  sculpture  in 
France  froze  into  a  sometimes  pleasing  but  never 
very  profitable  convention;  now  and  then  it  had 
great  loveliness,  as  in  the  statues  of  the  church 
at  Brou,  but  generally  it  had  those  qualities 
of  exaggeration,  affectation,  and  insincerity  to 
which  I  already  have  referred.  Technically,  it  was 
always  very  perfect  and  sometimes  the  decorative 
design  and  the  manipulation  of  the  marble  were 
almost  Japanese  in  their  curious  delicacy.  Toward 
the  end  of  the  century  there  is  an  improvement 
owing  to  the  influence  of  Flanders,  then  prosper- 
ous and  cultured  while  so  much  of  the  rest  of 
Europe  was  spiritually  and  physically  devastated 
by  wars,  but  this  later  work  seemed  the  particular 
detestation  of  the  reformers,  and  mostly  it  is  gone, 
particularly  in  the  land  of  its  origin,  where  reform 
followed  by  revolution  left  nothing  intact  that 
could  be  mutilated.  Little  of  the  work  of  the  two 
great  schools  of  Tournai  and  Burgundy  remains, 
but  there  is  enough  to  show  that  if  the  torch  of 
sculptural  art  had  passed  in  blood  and  flame  from 
the  hands  of  France,  it  had  been  seized  by  the 


254  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

men  of  the  Netherlands  and  carried  on  for  two 
centuries  at  least  with  little  diminution  in  its  radi- 
ance. With  the  seventeenth  century  the  flame 
was  suddenly  extinguished  and  afterward  was 
nothing  but  that  type  of  baroque  absurdity  that 
still  disgraces  the  undevastated  churches  with  pre- 
posterous marble  screens  and  loud-mouthed,  the- 
atrical pulpits,  and  prancing  images  of  heroic  size 
stuck  on  the  columns  of  nave  and  choir. 

What  the  seventeenth  century  failed  to  ac- 
complish in  the  line  of  these  atrocities  is  scarcely 
worth  doing;  the  grotesque  insanity  of  the  con- 
fessionals and  pulpits  and  other  woodwork  of  the 
time  passes  imagination,  and  is  matched  only  by 
the  misdirected  ingenuity  and  facility  of  it  all. 
The  cathedral  in  Brussels;  St.  Andre  at  Antwerp; 
St.  Martin,  Ypres;  St.  Pierre,  Louvain,  were 
particularly  hard  hit,  but  there  were  few  churches 
that  did  not  boast  at  least  a  pulpit  in  a  style  of 
design  that  would  have  looked  like  a  king's  coach 
of  state  had  it  not  more  closely  resembled  a  band- 
wagon. St.  Gudule  in  Brussels  suffered  most  of 
all,  for  it  not  only  possesses  a  peculiarly  irritating 
pulpit  of  most  ridiculous  design  but  its  columns 
are  disfigured  by  the  impossible  statues  on  gro- 
tesque brackets,  while  it  is  disgraced  by  some  of 


GOTHIC  SCULPTURE  255 

the  very  worst  stained  glass  produced  before  the 
last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  all 
past  records  were  revised. 

When  one  compares  the  tawdry  horrors  that 
in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  blotted 
almost  every  church  in  Flanders  and  Brabant, 
and  compares  it,  not  with  the  consummate  sculp- 
ture and  decoration  of  the  great  era  but  even 
with  such  work  of  the  undoubted  decadence  as 
the  screens  of  Louvain  and  Lierre,  the  impossible 
gulf  between  the  two  civilisations  becomes  pecu- 
liarly conspicuous.  When  one  realises  further  that 
the  black-and-white-marble  mortuary  horrors  in 
the  way  of  screens  in  Bruges,  Antwerp,  and  Ghent 
exist  at  the  expense  of  such  works  of  real,  if  un- 
guarded, art  as  the  screen  at  Lierre,  destroyed  to 
give  place  to  their  perfumed  artifice,  the  annihila- 
tion of  art  that  has  followed  its  production  with 
implacable  steps  takes  on  a  new  poignancy,  and 
the  continued  destruction,  now  violently  in  proc- 
ess, becomes  even  less  endurable  than  before. 


XIII 

THE   ALLIED   ARTS 

^  I^HE  debt  of  Europe  to  the  region  we  are 
-•-  considering  is  as  great  in  the  case  of  the 
so-called  "minor  arts"  as  it  is  elsewhere.  Even 
the  language  preserves  the  record:  Arras  has 
given  its  name  to  the  tapestries  for  which  it  was 
famous,  linen  woven  in  regular  patterns  is  called 
diaper,  or  "linge  d'Ypres,"  cambric  is  simply  the 
product  of  Cambrai,  gauntlet  preserves  the  fame  of 
Ghent  for  its  gloves,  while  the  lost  city  of  Dinant 
was  once  so  famous  for  its  work  in  copper,  brass, 
bronze,  and  gilded  metal  that  during  the  Middle 
Ages  all  products  of  this  kind  were  called  dinan- 
derie.  Tapestry  weaving  is,  or  was,  an  art  es- 
sentially Flemish;  illumination,  if  shared  with 
Italy  and  in  a  measure  every  land  where  there 
were  monks  and  monasteries,  reached  peculiarly 
notable  heights  in  Flanders,  Brabant,  and  Cham- 
pagne; the  casting  of  bells  and  the  forming  of 
them  into  carillons  is  peculiarly  the  province  of 
this  region,  while  metal  work,  whether  of  gold 
and  silver,  or  of  bronze  and  copper  and  brass, 

256 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  257 

was  an  art  of  distinction  even  from  the  time  of 
Charlemagne. 

It  was  he  that  was  primarily  responsible  for 
the  beginnings  of  many  of  these  admirable  arts. 
From  his  capital  at  Aix,  where  he  had  gathered 
all  the  art  and  learning  he  could  glean  from 
western  Europe,  went  out  the  influences  that 
persisted  long  beyond  his  day  and  that  of  his 
ill-fortuned  dynasty.  The  Scandinavian  tribes 
and  the  Celts  of  Gaul  had  always  been  craftsmen 
in  metals,  particularly  bronze,  and  Charlemagne 
used  them  under  the  direction  of  his  Roman  and 
Byzantine  artificers,  developing  an  art  that  was 
neither  one  nor  the  other,  but  a  new  Christian 
mode  of  expression.  When  toward  the  close  of 
the  tenth  century  the  young  Princess  Theophano 
came  from  the  Bosporus  as  the  bride  of  Otho  II, 
she  brought  with  her  other  artists,  with  a  treasure 
of  Byzantine  craftsmanship  in  weaving,  metals, 
enamels,  and  ivory  carving;  and  a  new  impulse 
was  given,  so  that,  under  the  direction  of  a  cres- 
cent Christianity,  a  local  and  racial  art  developed 
along  many  lines  and  extended  itself  through  the 
whole  region  and  into  France,  Normandy,  Eng- 
land, and  Germany  as  well.  From  Aix,  Arch- 
bishop Willigis  and  Bishop  Bernward  carried  into 


258  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Germany  the  art  of  metal  working  as  they  had 
learned  it,  one  to  Mainz,  the  other  to  Hildesheim, 
where  their  works  still  remain.  To  Dinant,  Huy, 
and  Liege  the  same  impulse  was  given  that  later 
extended  through  Brabant  and  Flanders.  In 
France  the  beginnings  seem  to  have  been  at  the 
hands  of  St.  Eloi  at  Limoges  and  Abbot  Suger 
of  St.  Denis,  but  it  was  all  within  the  area  to 
which  our  attention  is  confined. 

From  the  time  of  Charlemagne  the  production 
of  works  of  art  in  precious  and  common  metals 
was  an  ever-increasing  industry,  lapsing  during 
the  second  Dark  Ages,  beginning  with  new  and 
unexampled  vigour  with  the  great  religious  revival 
of  the  first  years  of  the  eleventh  century.  It  is 
impossible  to  form  an  adequate  estimate  either 
of  the  magnitude  of  the  product  or  the  degree 
of  concrete  beauty  that  came  in  these  many  lines 
of  art  out  of  the  Middle  Ages.  For  five  hundred 
years  craftsmen  were  busy  over  all  that  is  now 
Rhenish  Prussia,  Holland,  Belgium,  France,  and 
England,  with  the  Scandinavian  countries,  Italy, 
and  Spain  in  only  a  less  degree,  in  producing  an 
infinite  number  of  exquisite  things  for  an  infinite 
number  of  churches;  metal  work  of  every  kind 
and  for  every  conceivable  purpose — sacred  vessels, 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  259 

crosses,  crosiers,  reliquaries,  shrines,  tombs,  and 
screens;  woven  tapestries  to  hang  the  walls  of 
chateaux  and  cathedrals;  embroidered  and  jewelled 
vestments  for  an  unending  series  of  bishops, 
priests,  altars;  illuminated  volumes  whose  every 
vellum  page  was  a  work  of  art  and  whose  bind- 
ings were  studded  with  jewels;  carved  wood  and 
ivory  in  endless  designs  and  for  endless  purposes; 
stained  glass,  enamels,  tiles.  Every  church,  abbey, 
and  cathedral  was  by  the  beginning  of  the  Hun- 
dred Years'  War  as  full  of  works  of  consummate 
art  as  the  private  museum  of  a  modern  mil- 
lionaire, and  were  you  to  gather  together  the  trea- 
sures of  ecclesiastical  crafts  in  the  Cluny,  the  Vic- 
toria and  Albert  Museum,  and  the  Metropolitan 
in  New  York  you  might  have  about  as  much  as 
at  that  time  might  have  been  found  in  a  pro- 
vincial cathedral  of  the  second  class  or  a  minor 
monastery.  In  France  the  sculpture  has  been 
largely,  and  the  glass  partially,  saved;  in  Flan- 
ders many  of  the  pictures;  in  England  a  good 
proportion  of  the  churches  themselves,  but  the 
rest  is  gone,  utterly  and  irrevocably,  and  we  can 
hardly  more  than  dimly  imagine  from  a  Gloucester 
candlestick,  an  Ascoli  cope,  a  Shrine  of  St.  Sebald 
the  nature  of  what  has  been  taken  from  us. 


260  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Even  from  the  first  these  things  had  three 
qualities  that  argued  against  their  preservation, 
the  world  being  what  it  is.  They  were  intrinsi- 
cally valuable  because  of  their  bronze  and  silver 
and  gold  and  precious  gems;  therefore  in  the  wars 
that  followed  the  cresting  of  medievalism  they 
were  stolen  wholesale  by  one  army  after  another 
and  their  jewels  plucked  out,  and  then  they  were 
broken  up,  melted  down,  and  returned  to  their 
original  estate  of  lumps  of  bullion,  or  dead  metal, 
all  of  which  had  its  price.  They  were  the  most 
sacred  material  things  possessed  by  the  Church 
that  had  created  them;  part  and  parcel  of  the 
Catholic  sacraments,  memorials  of  the  honoured 
dead,  caskets  for  the  reverent  treasuring  of  the 
relics  of  the  saints;  therefore  they  were  the  par- 
ticular object  of  the  blind  and  furious  hatred  of 
Protestants,  whether  Huguenots,  Calvinists,  Pres- 
byterians, or,  in  a  less  degree,  Lutherans.  They 
were  Gothic  in  their  inimitable  art,  hence  anath- 
ema to  the  bewigged  bishops,  the  worldly  priests, 
and,  most  dangerous  of  all,  the  conceited  canons 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  What  the  thief  over- 
looked the  fanatic  destroyed,  and  what  he  forgot 
the  ignorant  and  vulgar  amateur  purged  away  to 
make  place  for  imitation  marble  and  secular 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  261 

frippery.  After  four  centuries  of  this  it  is  a 
wonder  that  anything  remains,  and,  to  tell  the 
truth,  there  is  little  enough. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  surprising  how  much  of  this 
was  still  in  our  chosen  territory  in  1914,  and  how 
much  that  is  in  museums  elsewhere  came  orig- 
inally from  the  same  place.  Liege  had  its  ex- 
traordinary bronze  font,  Hal  a  font,  a  lectern,  and 
many  other  treasures  of  late  Gothic  and  early 
Renaissance  art;  Lou  vain,  Tirlemont,  Xanten, 
Aix,  and  Treves  each  had  a  few  pieces  of  metal 
work  of  immense  artistic  value,  while  in  Bruges, 
Ghent,  Brussels,  and  Antwerp,  in  Laon,  Noyon, 
Sens,  and  Reims  were  a  few  miraculously  pre- 
served shrines,  tapestries,  vestments,  and  sacred 
vessels.  As  for  the  treasures  of  the  European 
and  American  museums,  the  greater  part  came 
from  Flanders,  Brabant,  the  Rhineland,  or  eastern 
France,  for  this  was  the  great  centre  of  industry, 
the  fountainhead  of  artistic  inspiration.  Of  the 
"dinanderie"  that  owed  its  existence  to  the  in- 
fluence of  the  four  great  leaders,  St.  Eloi,  St. 
Willigis,  Abbot  Suger,  and  Bishop  Bernward,  ab- 
solutely nothing  remains  except  the  fine  group  of 
bronze  masterpieces  by  the  last  at  Hildesheim. 
Liege  had,  however,  the  extremely  important 


262  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

bronze  font  made  by  Regnier  of  Huy  about 
and  Lille  possessed  a  censer  of  his  workmanship, 
while  in  Maastricht  was  a  great  shrine  of  gilded 
and  enamelled  copper  set  with  precious  stones; 
the  Convent  of  Notre  Dame  at  Namur  and  the 
church  of  Walcourt  had  no  less  than  eighteen 
specimens  of  the  handicraft  of  Brother  Hugh  of 
the  great  but  long  ago  destroyed  Abbey  at  Oignies 
between  the  Meuse  and  the  Sambre,  representing 
the  art  of  a  century  later,  while  later  still  we  had 
the  "Chasse  de  Notre  Dame"  and  the  reliquary 
of  St.  Eleutherus  at  Tournai,  and  the  shrine  of 
St.  Gertrude  of  Nivelles  made  in  1272.  Of  the 
vast  product  of  the  fourteenth  century  there  are 
a  few  fragments  only,  an  eagle  lectern  and  a 
great  paschal  candlestick  at  Tongres,  some  crosses, 
reliquaries,  monstrances,  and  candlesticks  at  Aix, 
Tongres,  Furnes,  Mainz,  Xanten,  Bruges,  and 
Ghent,  but,  fortunately  it  would  now  seem,  the 
greater  part  of  what  remains  is  preserved  in  the 
museums  of  Paris  and  London  and  therefore  safe 
for  another  period.  Outside  the  museums  the 
great  treasures  were  to  be  found  at  Sens  and  Laori, 
the  latter  being  particularly  rich,  as  is  proved  by 
the  fact  that  the  cathedral  is  said  to  contain  no 
less  than  eighty  reliquaries  covering  the  whole 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  263 

period  of  the  Middle  Ages.  So  far  as  monumental 
tombs  are  concerned,  every  church  in  France  has 
been  swept  clear,  chiefly  by  the  Revolutionists, 
not  one  of  the  marvellous  collections  at  St.  Denis 
and  Reims  remaining,  but  in  Bruges  we  still  have 
the  fine  tomb  of  Mary  of  Burgundy,  of  black  mar- 
ble encased  in  a  foliated  tracery  of  gilded  copper 
and  coloured  enamels. 

In  the  bourdons  of  France  and  the  carillons  of 
the  Low  Countries  the  art  of  the  metal-worker 
combines  with  that  of  music.  Both  the  carillon 
and  the  English  peal  are  late  developments,  the 
first  of  the  sixteenth,  the  second  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  but  from  the  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth  century  great  bells,  used  singly  or  in 
small  combinations,  were  in  constant  use.  Most 
of  the  latter  are  gone,  melted  down  in  the  Hun- 
dred Years'  War  and  the  Revolution  in  France, 
and  the  wars  of  religion  in  the  Rhineland  and  the 
Low  Countries,  though  a  few  remain  at  Amiens, 
Sens,  Metz,  and  Beauvais,  with  one  weighing  over 
a  ton  which  hung  at  Reims  until  last  year.  The 
carillons  of  Belgium  and  Holland  were  intact 
until  that  time,  though  many  have  now  fallen 
with  the  splendid  towers  that  held  them.  Arras  is 
gone  and  probably  Dunkerque;  Louvain  and  Ypres 


264  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

are  gone  and  possibly  Mons;  Malines,  most  beau- 
tiful of  all,  has  been  battered  to  pieces  and  its 
forty -five  bells  have  been  cracked,  melted,  hurled 
in  ruin  down  through  the  many  stories  of  the 
great  tower.  Time  after  time  during  the  last 
generation  from  twenty  thousand  to  forty  thou- 
sand people  have  assembled  to  hear  these  bells 
rung  by  M.  Denyn,  the  greatest  master  of  the 
art,  but  they  will  hear  them  no  more  until,  per- 
haps, when  the  world  is  made  new  the  bells  of 
Malines  may  ring  out  again  to  welcome  the  dawn 
of  a  better  day. 

Whether  the  English  peal  of  an  octave,  with 
the  bells  attuned  to  the  intervals  of  the  diatonic 
scale,  and  swung  by  hand,  a  man  to  each  rope, 
in  accordance  with  the  most  intricate  mathemat- 
ical formulas  and  without  recognised  melodies, 
is  better  or  worse  art  than  the  carillon  of  thirty- 
five  to  fifty-two  bells,  covering  sometimes  four 
octaves  and  a  half,  in  accord  with  the  chromatic 
scale,  fixed  in  their  head-stocks  and  struck  by 
hammers  manipulated  by  one  man  sitting  before 
a  keyboard,  and  reproducing  the  most  elaborate 
musical  compositions,  is  no  part  of  the  argument. 
Each  has  its  place,  each  is  a  mode  of  musical  art, 
and  just  because  one  may  like  the  strange  and 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  265 

subtle  variations  of  an  English  peal  thundering 
out  its  vibrant  tones  from  great  bells  swinging 
and  clashing  in  a  grey  old  tower,  it  does  not  fol- 
low that  he  must  reject  the  floating  and  ethereal 
harmonies  of  the  Belgian  carillon  pouring  into 
the  still  evening  air  strange  melodies  that  are 
eternally  haunting  in  their  poignant  appeal.  They 
are  silent  now,  even  those  that  still  hang  in  their 
tall  towers,  and  the  roar  of  giant  artillery,  split- 
ting and  harshly  reverberating,  has  taken  their 
place.  In  the  good  beginnings  iron  was  anathema 
and  might  not  be  used  in  the  service  of  the  Church; 
bronze  alone  was  tolerable.  Now  iron  is  king 
and  holds  dominion  over  the  world,  transmuted 
into  steel  through  the  offices  of  its  ally,  coal. 
Bronze  is  rejected,  shattered,  dethroned,  but 
some  of  the  great  bells  yet  remain,  hanging  silent 
and  patient  while  hell  rages  around  them  and 
iron  asserts  its  universal  dominion.  Perhaps  by 
and  by  they  will  give  tongue  again,  proclaiming 
the  end  of  the  iron  age,  calling  in  once  more  a 
better  and  more  righteous  sovereignty. 

Some  day  the  world  will  awaken  to  the  fact  that 
there  are  other  great  arts  besides  architecture, 
painting,  and  sculpture;  already  there  is  a  sus- 
picion abroad  that  music,  poetry,  and  the  drama 


266  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

are  arts  also  and  not  merely  vehicles  for  the  ex- 
pression of  temperament,  and  there  is  even  a 
preliminary  waking  of  the  subconsciousness  which 
threatens  to  confess  that  ritual  and  ceremonial 
have  been,  and  may  be  again,  a  great  fine  art  in 
the  same  sense.  Little  by  little  the  pharisaic 
phrase,  "industrial  art,"  is  yielding  some  of  its 
component  parts  and  offering  them  to  the  very 
superior  haute  noblesse  of  fine  art,  and  amongst 
these  are  stained  glass  and  tapestry.  The  recent 
discovery  of  the  existence  of  Chartres  Cathedral 
and  its  glass  has  settled  one  point,  and  much 
against  their  will  the  artist  and  the  amateur  and 
the  commentator  have  had  to  admit  that  the  art 
of  these  windows,  and  of  those  at  Bourges  and 
Le  Mans  and  Angers,  is  of  the  highest,  and  quite 
in  the  class  of  the  painters  of  Italy  and  Flanders, 
the  sculptors  of  France  and  England  (in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages),  and  the  master  builders  from  Laon  to 
Amiens. 

Of  this  particularly  glorious  art,  which  has  be- 
come more  completely  a  lost  art  than  any  other 
ever  revealed  to  man,  there  is  little  in  the  region 
under  consideration.  It  did  not  issue  from  the 
Heart  of  Europe,  but  had  its  beginnings  elsewhere 
and  its  culmination  as  well.  It  was  an  art  of 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  267 

the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  cen- 
turies, degenerating  rapidly  after  the  year  1300, 
and,  while  the  churches  and  abbeys  and  cathedrals 
between  the  Seine  and  the  Somme  were  once 
splendid  with  glass  that  almost  rivalled  that  of 
Chartres,  the  Reformation  and  the  Revolution  had 
seen  to  it  that  the  major  part  of  this  glory  had 
been  made  to  depart.  Amiens  retains  a  little  in 
its  chevet  chapels,  and  Reims  only  a  year  ago 
was  blazing  with  an  apocalyptic  splendour  that  is 
now  transformed  into  gaping  and  fire-swept  open- 
ings, laced  by  distorted  metal  bars,  and  heaps  of 
pulverised  refuse  ground  into  the  blood  and  ashes 
on  shattered  pavements.  Whatever  the  Low 
Countries  may  have  had  is  long  since  gone  the 
way  of  all  the  other  beautiful  things  the  Calvin- 
ists  did  not  like  and  only  fragments,  imitations, 
and  Renaissance  absurdities  remain. 

With  the  other  great  art,  that  of  tapestry,  the 
case  is  fortunately  different.  This  was  almost  the 
intimate  art  of  the  Heart  of  Europe,  finding  its  be- 
ginnings in  Aix  when  the  Greek  princess  brought 
with  her  from  the  East  the  first  examples  of  Byzan- 
tine needlework  and  weaving  that  had  been  seen  in 
the  West  in  her  day,  and  going  on  to  new  glories 
in  Arras,  Brussels,  Tournai,  Audenaarde,  Lille, 


268  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Enghien.  The  perfection  of  tapestry  weaving 
came  in  the  last  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  but 
the  advance  was  regular  for  a  century  before,  and 
if  we  can  judge  from  the  few  examples  left  the 
work  of  the  fourteenth  century  had  many  fine 
and  powerful  qualities  that  were  all  its  own.  The 
collapse  came  suddenly,  early  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  being  marked  by  Raphael's  intrusion 
into  a  field  where  he  had  no  place,  and  after  this 
there  was  no  more  hope  for  tapestry  than  for  the 
other  arts,  and  it  rapidly  sank  to  the  point  where 
the  products  of  the  Gobelins,  Beauvais,  and  Au- 
bussons  looms  were  much  admired. 

If  Gothic  tapestry  had  possessed  a  pecuniary 
value  easily  translated  into  cash,  or  if  it  had  been 
closely  associated  with  the  most  sacred  religious 
things,  we  should  have  preserved  less  than  is 
actually  the  case.  As  it  is,  it  was  seldom  the 
victim  of  cupidity  or  fanaticism,  but  by  its  very 
nature  it  was  perishable,  and  therefore  nearly  all 
the  work  antedating  the  fifteenth  century  has 
vanished.  Its  greatest  enemy,  however,  was  the 
ignorant  and  vulgar  culture  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  during  the  first  fifty  years  of  this 
destructive  epoch  it  melted  rapidly  away.  Just 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution  it 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  269 

is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  there  were  in 
France  alone  enough  tapestries  to  carpet  a  road 
from  Paris  to  Arras;  of  course,  many  were  of  the 
Gobelins  type  and  comparatively  valueless  as  art, 
but  every  chateau,  every  cathedral  and  monas- 
tery, almost  every  church  had  its  sets  of  "arras," 
and  these  were  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  cen- 
turies; the  curious  products  of  the  Renaissance 
were  confined  to  kings,  princes,  great  nobles,  and 
to  their  respective  palaces.  With  1793  the  mas- 
sacre began;  everything  feudal,  even  by  implica- 
tion, was  burned,  sometimes  just  out  of  pure  dev- 
iltry, as  when  tapestries  were  consumed  in  heaps 
at  the  foot  of  the  "Tree  of  Liberty";  sometimes 
through  thrift,  as  when  in  1797  the  Directory 
burned  at  one  time  nearly  two  hundred  ancient 
works  of  art  to  recover  the  gold  and  silver  bullion 
— which  they  did  at  this  one  holocaust  to  the 
value  of  $13,000.  Mr.  G.  L.  Hunter  has  reckoned 
the  value  of  these  destroyed  tapestries  at  about 
$2,500,000  in  the  market  of  to-day.  At  this  rate,  the 
current  value  of  all  the  tapestries  in  France  at  the 
Revolution  would  have  been  about  $250,000,000. 
No  appreciation  of  this  value  developed  until 
nearly  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In 
1852  a  set  of  ten,  formerly  belonging  to  Louis 


270  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Philippe,  with  a  total  length  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty  feet,  sold  for  about  $1,200,  and  at  the 
same  sale  another  set  of  six,  running  to  eighty 
feet,  was  bought  for  $400.  At  present  the  in- 
trinsic value  of  these  wonderful  creations  is  quite 
fully  appreciated,  and  any  one  who  can  secure  a 
fifteenth-century  work  for  less  than  $300  a  square 
yard  is  fortunate.  And  yet  during  the  whole  of 
the  eighteenth  century  tapestries  were  ruthlessly 
cut  up  to  form  floor  rugs,  used  for  packing  bales  of 
merchandise,  or,  as  at  Angers,  slashed  into  strips 
to  protect  the  roots  of  orange-trees  from  the  cold, 
or  nailed  on  the  stalls  of  the  bishop's  stable  so 
that  the  episcopal  nags  might  not  scar  their  pre- 
cious flanks.  This  last  outrage,  by  the  way,  was 
perpetrated  on  the  unique  series  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse, a  sequence  of  panels  eighteen  feet  high 
with  a  total  length  of  four  hundred  and  seventy- 
two  feet,  woven  in  Paris  about  1370  from  designs 
by  Jean  de  Bruges,  court  painter  to  the  Emperor 
Charles  V,  for  the  use  of  the  Duke  of  Anjou  in 
his  private  chapel,  and  at  a  cost  (in  the  money  of 
to-day)  of  upward  of  $60,000.  They  had  been 
given  to  the  cathedral  by  King  Rene  in  1480,  but 
by  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  they 
were  quite  out  of  fashion  and  therefore  useless; 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  271 

so  until  a  rag  merchant  sufficiently  accommodat- 
ing could  be  found  they  were  used  as  noted  above 
and  finally  sold  (the  opportunity  at  last  offering) 
in  1843  for  $60,  the  purchaser  ultimately  return- 
ing them  to  the  cathedral  when  some  glimmerings 
of  intelligence  came  back  to  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities. 

When  this  sort  of  thing  was  the  rule  in  France 
and  England  and  Germany  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury during  which  civilisation  and  culture  were 
progressing  with  such  notable  rapidity,  it  is  a 
miracle  that  anything  has  come  down  to  us, 
particularly  when  you  remember  what  the  Cal- 
vinists  and  Sansculottes  and  Reformers  did  to 
monasteries  and  chateaux  and  entire  cities  in  the 
two  preceding  centuries;  but  a  good  deal  did  so 
come  down,  including  even  the  poor  remains  of 
the  very  much  domesticated  tapestries  of  Angers. 
There  is  only  one  other  fourteenth-century  set 
woven  at  Arras  that  can  positively  be  identified, 
and  that  is  the  series  now  (or  recently)  in  the 
cathedral  of  Tournai,  though  we  know  from  wills 
and  inventories  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fifteenth  century  they  existed  in  hundreds.  The 
remains  of  this  early  work  are  fine  and  strong  in 
design,  powerful  as  decoration,  clear  but  faded  in 


272  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

colour.  With  the  fifteenth  century  there  came  an 
amazing  advance,  similar  to  the  sudden  appear- 
ance of  the  Van  Eycks  in  painting  at  exactly  the 
same  moment.  The  "Burgundian  Sacraments" 
— or  what  remains — now  in  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  as  the  gift  of  the  late  J.  P.  Morgan,  is 
one  of  the  finest  examples  in  existence  of  this 
earliest  of  the  great  periods.  Admirable  as  it  is, 
it  fails  in  perfection  of  beauty  before  the  won- 
derful works  of  art  that  immediately  followed. 
With  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century- 
tapestry  weaving  came  suddenly  to  a  level  of 
supreme  excellence  that  places  it  for  a  hundred 
years  on  a  level  with  the  other  arts,  however 
august  they  may  be.  Very  few  of  these  master- 
pieces remain  in  Belgium;  you  must  search  for 
them  in  Paris,  in  London,  in  Madrid,  in  New 
York,  in  the  museums  of  all  the  world,  but  the 
search  is  rewarded  by  the  discovery  of  an  art 
that,  however  brief  its  day,  was  one  of  the  great 
arts  of  the  world. 

Each  art  has  its  own  medium  of  expression  and 
to  this  medium  it  absolutely  adheres  in  its  peri- 
ods of  greatness,  adapting  itself  to  its  limitations, 
working  within  them,  and  even  making  them 
tributary  to  its  excellence.  Limitations  are,  after 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  273 

all,  the  greatest  gift  of  God  to  man  instead  of 
being,  as  the  last  century  feigned,  something  that 
deplorably  existed  only  to  be  transcended;  with- 
out them  man  would  revert  to  the  condition  of 
the  jellyfish  or  the  primal  ooze  of  the  depths  of 
the  sea;  with  them  he  has  an  opportunity  to 
demonstrate  his  divine  elements  through  a  de- 
velopment that  is  both  in  spite  of  and  because  of 
the  firm  lines  they  draw  that  cannot  be  over- 
passed. One  of  the  great  things  in  art  is  its 
revelation  of  the  possibility  of  spiritual  achieve- 
ment by  and  through  the  narrowest  physical 
limitations.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  archi- 
tecture tries  to  assimilate  the  peculiar  methods  of 
bridge  building;  when  painting  intrudes  into  the 
province  of  sculpture,  literature,  photography,  or 
even  music;  when  music  becomes  mathematical 
or  takes  to  itself  the  habits  of  the  circus  per- 
former; when  sculpture  deliquesces  into  a  sloppy 
kind  of  black-and-white  illustration;  when  stained 
glass  and  tapestry  become  pictorial;  when,  in 
fact,  all  the  arts  forsake  their  own  provinces  and 
deny  their  own  limitations,  as  they  have  tended 
to  do  during  the  last  century,  splashing  over,  the 
one  into  the  other,  they  cease  to  be  arts  at  all  and 
become  unprofitable  aberrations. 


274  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Only  three  great  arts  have  come  into  existence 
during  the  last  two  thousand  years — music,  stained 
glass,  and  tapestry — and  each  developed  its  own 
exact  and  individual  mode  of  expression.  Music 
was  as  old  as  architecture,  painting,  sculpture, 
poetry,  and  the  drama,  but  under  the  influences 
of  Christianity  it  gradually  transformed  itself  into 
what  was  almost  a  new  art  and  one  that  has  re- 
mained the  only  vital  art  through  all  the  un- 
friendly influences  of  modern  civilisation.  Stained 
glass  was  an  absolutely  new  art,  taking  its  rise 
in  the  twelfth  century,  culminating  in  the  thir- 
teenth, decaying  through  the  two  following  cen- 
turies, and  entirely  disappearing  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  is  an  art  of  Christianity,  of  Frank 
genius,  and  of  the  lie  de  France.  Tapestry  is 
also  a  new  art,  beginning  about  1350,  culminat- 
ing a  century  later,  dying  almost  in  a  day  (as  a 
great  art),  about  1520.  It  also  is  Christian,  but, 
unlike  glass,  it  is  primarily  secular,  and  it  is  ex- 
plicitly and  almost  exclusively  Flemish,  the  great 
contribution  of  a  distinguished  race  to  the  im- 
perishable art  of  the  world. 

It  was  the  glorification  of  a  national  industry — 
weaving — and  is  significant  as  showing  how,  under 
wholesome  impulses  and  in  a  stimulating  envi- 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  275 

ronment,  a  simple  industry  may  be  transfigured 
and  made  into  art.  Its  medium  was  peculiarly 
delicate,  subtle,  and  beautiful,  threads  of  spun 
wool,  silk  and  gold  and  silver  woven  by  hand 
into  a  fixed  warp  of  strung  threads.  These  fila- 
ments of  silk  (as  in  the  finest  work)  had  peculiar 
qualities  of  beauty,  combining  both  lustrousness 
and  depth,  while  the  colours  being  entirely  vege- 
table dyes,  with  none  of  the  harsh  horrors  of  the 
analine  by-products  of  coal-tar,  were  infinitely 
varied  and  of  unique  richness  and  soft  splendour. 
Fortunately,  this  new  artistic  mode  was  developed 
sufficiently  prior  to  the  breakdown  of  art  which 
was  signalised  by  the  career  of  a  man  in  himself 
a  very  great  artist — Raphael — to  permit  a  full 
century  of  life,  and  at  the  hands  of  a  people  who 
had  a  peculiar  appreciation  of  decoration  and  of 
decorative  methods.  The  result  was  startling, 
for  a  new  art  was  born  and  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished quality.  As  colour  decoration  the  tap- 
estries of  Flanders  come  near  being  the  very 
finest  things  in  the  world,  although  we  must  judge 
them  from  a  few  examples  only,  the  admittedly 
greatest  having  long  since  fallen  victims  to  greed, 
fanaticism,  and  the  stolid  ignorance  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.  Fortunately  for  the  general  public, 


276  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

the  remaining  masterpieces  are  now  widely  scat- 
tered and  may  be  studied  with  comparative  ease, 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  in  New  York  being 
particularly  rich  and  having,  either  in  its  own 
name  or  by  loan,  the  Burgundian  Sacraments, 
the  matchless  "Mazarin"  Christ  in  Glory,  the 
almost  equally  beautiful  "Coronation  of  the  Vir- 
gin," as  well  as  scores  of  others,  many  of  them 
of  supreme  excellence. 

It  is  as  impossible  to  describe  a  tapestry  in 
words  as  it  is  to  do  the  same  by  a  Chartres  win- 
dow. In  point  of  composition  the  tapestries  of 
the  fifteenth  century  are  matched  only  by  the 
greatest  pictures;  even  when  they  are  crowded 
with  figures  there  is  the  most  masterly  spacing 
of  masses,  the  most  consummate  balance  of  form. 
When  one  realises  that  in  every  case  the  design 
is  the  work  of  the  members  of  the  guild  and  not 
of  the  more  famous  painters  of  the  time,  the 
wonder  grows  over  the  apparently  universal  feel- 
ing for  the  highest  type  of  artistic  expression. 
Compared  with  the  best  of  the  Flemish  tapes- 
tries, the  boasted  and  "much  admired"  composi- 
tion of  Raphael  in  the  "Disputa"  and  the  "School 
of  Athens,"  of  Michael  Angelo  in  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  is  mathematical  and  academic.  In  line 


THE  ALLIED  ARTS  277 

and  line  composition  there  is  the  same  exquisite 
sensitiveness  that  is  almost  Greek  or  Japanese  in 
its  subtlety  and  rhythm,  while  the  colour,  though 
in  many  cases  faded,  is  as  pure  and  musical  in 
its  several  tones  as  it  is  resonant  and  splendid  in 
combination.  And  through  all  this  consummate 
mastery  and  this  supreme  artistic  sense  run  a 
peculiar  charm  and  distinction  that  are  found 
only  in  such  unique  products  as  the  pictures  of 
Jan  van  Eyck,  Fra  Angelico,  the  Lorenzetti, 
Carpaccio,  and  their  kind.  Through  them  you 
enter  into  a  dim  and  golden  fairyland  full  of  wist- 
ful music  and  haunting  memories,  where  fair 
ladies,  courteous  knights,  delicate-winged  angels, 
aureoled  saints  in  blazing  dalmatics  pass  like 
dreams  through  far  countries,  "where  it  is  always 
afternoon"  and  where  the  land  is  always  lovely, 
the  skies  serene,  the  flowers  and  birds  and  little 
beasts  friendly  and  well  beloved.  Chretien  de 
Troyes  and  the  troubadours  and  the  Court  of 
Love,  King  Arthur  and  Roland  and  King  Rene, 
Guenivere,  and  the  gracious  queens  and  gentle 
ladies  of  all  the  Middle  Ages  live  again,  or  rather 
prolong  their  lives  through  a  passive  immortality 
into  which  whoever  understands  is  welcome  to 
enter  and  sit  him  down  in  peace. 


XIV 

ART   IN   THE   RHINELAND 

FROM  Charlemagne's  ambitious  centre  at  Aix- 
la-Chapelle  the  influence  of  a  new  culture 
went  west  rather  than  east,  and  it  is  not  until 
the  eleventh  century  that  we  can  look  for  art  of 
any  sort  along  the  valley  of  the  Rhine  and  in  the 
lands  of  old  Lorraine.  There  was  little  enough 
elsewhere,  but  when,  at  the  finger-touch  of  a  new 
monasticism  calling  a  new  northern  blood  to  ac- 
tion, civilisation  began  again  in  Normandy  and 
then  in  the  lie  de  France,  its  echo  in  the  Rhine- 
land  was  far  and  long  delayed,  and  never  more 
than  an  echo  at  most.  There  were  bad  kings 
until  the  second  Crusade  and  the  coming  of  the 
Cistercians  in  1174,  and  little  culture;  but  from 
then  on  there  was  a  distinct  spiritual  revival,  a 
new  impulse  in  religion  and  in  life,  and  as  a  result 
the  output  of  art  of  all  kinds  was  greatly  increased. 
The  three  elements  entering  into  the  new  archi- 
tecture were:  the  revived  tradition  of  the  old 
work  of  the  Carolings,  much  of  which  still  existed 

278 


ART  IN  THE  RHINELAND  279 

in  ruinous  form,  the  new  ideas  brought  home  from 
Syria  by  the  crusaders,  and  the  infiltration  of 
Lombard  fashions  from  north  Italy,  with  the  Cis- 
tercian monks  always  exerting  their  austere  and 
reforming  influence  toward  simplicity. 

Many  of  the  earliest  examples  of  this  new  work 
— at  least  the  earliest  now  existing — are  across 
the  Rhine,  in  Thuringia  and  Saxony,  and  are  out- 
side our  survey.  Gernrode,  Essen,  Hildesheim, 
are  all  beyond  our  territory,  but  Cologne  is  this 
side  the  river  and  contains  some  of  the  most 
organic  and  best  of  the  late  tenth  and  early 
eleventh  century  work.  Sta.  Maria  in  Capitolio 
and  St.  Martin  are  both  of  that  very  peculiar  type 
of  plan  that  has  an  apse  and  apsidal  transepts  of 
equal  size  and  semicircular  in  plan.  The  central 
tower  is  supported  on  four  piers  made  up  of  groups 
of  four,  as  at  San  Marco  in  Venice,  and  the  apse 
and  transepts  are  surrounded  by  ambulatories,  the 
main  walls  being  carried  on  columns,  set  rather 
close  together  and  carrying  round  arches.  It  is 
an  interesting  and  ingenious  scheme,  with  great 
possibilities  of  development,  though  it  has  al- 
most never  been  used  elsewhere;  probably  it  is 
of  Syrian  origin,  the  idea  being  brought  home  by 
early  crusaders,  though  it  may  be  Byzantine,  in 


280  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

which  case  also  it  was  probably  derived  from 
Antioch,  where  the  crusaders  found  so  much  of 
value  to  them  in  the  development  of  the  later 
art  of  Europe.  St.  Martin's  has  also  a  very 
beautiful  tower  with  a  high  broach  spire  and 
admirably  designed  corner  turrets.  The  com- 
position of  the  church  from  the  east,  with  its 
curving  apsidal  lines,  its  delicate  little  colonnades 
of  Lombard  form  under  the  eaves,  and  the  grace- 
ful yet  powerful  towers,  is  noble  and  dignified, 
and  the  whole  building  is  far  more  organic  and 
logically  articulated  than  the  bigger  work  of  a 
century  later  farther  up  the  Rhine. 

The  Church  of  the  Apostles  is  nearer  this 
later  type  and  has  its  unfortunate  agglomeration 
of  ill-placed  towers,  but  St.  Gereon  is  sui  generis; 
it  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  any  plan  at  all,  for 
it  is  made  up  of  a  simple  little  aisleless  church 
of  three  bays  with  a  round  apse  and  two  small 
transept-like  towers,  joined  on  to  an  irregular 
decagon  of  a  nave,  somewhat  elliptical  in  plan, 
with  large  niches  in  each  of  the  eight  lateral 
sides  and  a  square  porch  or  narthex  at  the  west 
end.  This  anomalous  "nave"  is  early  thirteenth 
century  it  is  true,  while  the  eastern  church  is 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  older,  but  the  Gothic 


ART  IN  THE   RHINELAND  281 

work  is  on  foundations  undoubtedly  Roman  and 
takes  the  place  of  a  structure  of  somewhat  similar 
plan  built  by  the  Empress  Helena.  The  sequence 
is  curious;  there  was  first  a  circular  or  elliptical 
Roman  building,  on  the  foundations  of  which  the 
Empress  Helena  built  her  church,  the  crypt  of 
which  still  remains,  then  the  easterly  choir  was 
built  by  Archbishop  Hanno  late  in  the  eleventh 
century,  and  finally  the  original  main  church  was 
torn  down  and  rebuilt  on  Gothic  lines  about  1225. 
In  nearly  all  the  Romanesque  churches  of 
Cologne  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  reproduce 
the  original  polychromatic  decoration  which  once 
covered  all  portions  of  the  masonry,  but  the  re- 
sults are  not  eminently  satisfactory,  for  me- 
chanical diaper  and  stencilling  cannot  take  the 
place  of  the  old  work  which  was  done  freely  and 
without  exactness  of  line  and  spacing,  while  the 
colours  and  the  medium  used  were  quite  different 
from  what  is  employed  to-day.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  once  every  Gothic  interior,  now  grey  and 
sombre,  or  garish  in  its  clean  whitewash  and 
mathematical  jointing  of  painted  lines,  was  en- 
tirely covered  with  the  richest  possible  surface 
decoration  in  colours  and  gold,  and  the  result 
must  have  been  a  gorgeousness  and  a  gaiety  of 


282  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

which  we  know  nothing  and  that  would  probably 
shock  our  sensitive  taste  to  the  point  of  hysteria. 
One  would  like  to  see  some  great  church  with 
full  colour  decoration,  but  as  matters  now  stand, 
with  oil  paint,  stencils,  coal-tar  colours,  and  all 
that,  the  experiment  could  hardly  be  made  with 
any  degree  of  safety. 

In  Cologne  also  are  many  early,  middle,  and 
late  Gothic  churches;  that  of  the  Minorites,  St. 
Severins,  St.  Panteleon,  St.  Andreas,  St.  Cuni- 
bert;  in  fact,  Cologne  is  especially  rich  in  churches 
of  many  styles  and  most  of  them  remarkably 
good,  but  they  are  apt  to  be  overlooked  by  the 
tourist  who  can  see,  and  cares  to  see,  only  the 
overgrown  grandeur  of  the  cathedral.  Farther 
up  the  Rhine  we  find  a  long  succession  of  great 
churches  which  are  characteristically  German  and 
well  show  the  best  the  Teutonic  genius  was  capa- 
ble of  under  the  highest  impulse;  Bonn,  Coblentz, 
Mayence.,  Worms,  and  Spires  are  all  huge  struc- 
tures and  quite  in  a  class  by  themselves.  They 
are  not  beautiful  by  any  stretch  of  courtesy;  big 
they  are  and  massive,  with  curious  combinations 
of  multiplied  apses  and  transepts  and  towers,  but 
they  are  without  organic  quality  of  any  kind, 
their  composition  is  diffuse  and  casual,  their  de- 


WORMS 


ART  IN  THE  RHINELAND  283 

tail  crude  and  uninteresting.  Nowhere  is  there  a 
step  forward  in  the  development  of  organism,  and 
as  they  increase  in  size  they  show  only  a  multi- 
plication of  rather  infelicitous  parts.  Under- 
neath is  an  idea  that  was  susceptible  of  develop- 
ment into  something  fine  and  national,  but  it 
never  had  either  the  time  or  the  spirit  to  work 
itself  out  and  so  remains  a  heavy  and  rather  il- 
literate labouring  after  something  too  dimly  seen 
to  be  really  stimulating  in  the  sense  in  which  the 
ideal  in  Normandy  and  France  was  stimulating. 
Actually  there  was  more  of  promise  in  the  work  of 
the  eleventh  century,  as  we  see  it  at  Hildesheim 
and  Cologne,  but  this  also  was  left  undeveloped 
and  never  worked  out  its  inherent  possibilities. 

The  architectural  development  of  Germany  be- 
gan too  late;  it  was  always  a  full  century  behind 
France  and  Italy,  and  when  the  Rhenish  people 
were  hammering  away  at  their  clumsy  and  un- 
inspired giants  of  masonry  that  never  seemed  to 
become  anything  else  and  never  produced  any 
elements  of  novelty  or  progress,  either  structur- 
ally or  aesthetically,  Normandy  already  had  struck 
out  those  masterpieces  of  crescent  vitality,  Ju- 
mieges  and  the  abbeys  of  Caen,  while  France 
was  well  along  the  highroad  of  her  consummate 


284  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Gothic,   through   St.    Denis,   Noyon,   Laon,   and 
Paris. 

This  backwardness  in  the  acceptance  of  civili- 
sation has  always  worked  against  the  attainment 
of  the  highest  levels  of  culture  by  that  portion  of 
the  Germanic  nation  north  of  the  Danube  and 
east  of  the  Rhine,  while  it  has  given  it  a  certain 
advantage  in  the  achievement  of  material  ends, 
since  the  ethical  and  religious  considerations,  that 
in  a  measure  held  elsewhere,  were  naturally  lack- 
ing. No  part  of  this  wild  land  of  savage  and 
heathen  tribes  ever  felt  the  touch  of  Roman 
civilisation,  such  as  it  was,  and  it  was  the  last 
part  of  central  Europe  to  be  Christianised.  The 
Bavarians,  Burgundians,  and  Franks  all  accepted 
Christianity  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century,  but 
the  tribes  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Weser  were 
heathens  for  another  three  hundred  years.  The 
Wendish  lands  (where  Berlin  now  is)  did  not 
come  into  Christian  Europe  until  the  early 
eleventh  century,  at  about  the  time,  let  us  say, 
of  Duke  Richard  of  Normandy  and  the  founding 
of  the  great  abbeys  and  schools  of  Bee,  Fecamp, 
and  Jumieges;  Pomerania  (where  the  grenadiers 
come  from)  was  converted  after  a  fashion  a  hun- 
dred years  later  still,  in  the  days  of  the  highest 


ART  IN  THE  RHINELAND  285 

civilisation  in  Europe,  but  Prussia  was  the  last 
of  all,  and  when  Christianity  was  preached  in  its 
arid  plains  and  amongst  its  stubbornly  heathen 
peoples  Reims  cathedral  was  rising  into  its  sublime 
majesty,  marking  the  high  attainments  of  almost 
eight  centuries  of  cumulative  Christian  culture. 

Even  in  the  Rhineland,  however,  there  was 
something  lacking  to  that  culture  that  always 
has  issue  in  great  architectural  art;  many  things 
were  started  but  none  was  ever  finished.  The 
school  of  Cologne  gave  place  to  the  Rhenish 
fashion  and  this  was  suddenly  abandoned  for 
Gothic  after  it  had  been  raised  to  its  highest 
point  in  France  and  was  at  the  very  moment  of 
decline.  Neither  Cologne  nor  Strasbourg  is  of  the 
same  quality  of  perfection  as  Bourges  or  Amiens 
or  Reims;  indeed,  they  both  fall  immeasurably 
short,  and  though  later,  across  the  Rhine,  in  Frei- 
bourg,  Erfurt,  even  as  far  afield  as  Vienna,  Teu- 
tonic blood  was  to  begin  a  new  coursing  through 
veins  already  hardening,  again  there  was  to  be 
no  culmination  and  the  Renaissance  was  accepted, 
ready-made,  as  it  came  from  France  and  Italy. 

Cologne  is  a  magnificent  essay  in  premeditated 
art,  and  it  has  certain  qualities  of  almost  over- 
powering grandeur  that  are  wholly  its  own;  the 


286  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

west  front  with  its  vast  towers  is  a  masterpiece 
of  consistent  design,  but  it  is  so  knowing  and 
academic  that  it  misses  the  inspiration  accorded 
to  more  modest  and  God-fearing  master  builders, 
while  the  interior  is  wire-drawn  and  metallic  and 
quite  without  the  infinite  grace  and  subtlety  of 
the  best  French  or  even  English  work.  Of  the 
sense  of  scale  it  has  little  or  nothing,  its  detail 
is  of  a  cast-iron  quality,  and  altogether  it  seems 
like  a  very  successful  nineteenth-century  essay  in 
academic  design. 

Of  course,  much  of  what  we  see  is  modern;  the 
choir  is  fairly  early  for  Gothic  in  Germany,  hav- 
ing been  begun  in  1248  and  finished  just  seventy- 
five  years  later;  the  transepts  followed  at  once, 
and  the  lower  portion  of  the  nave,  but  interest 
died  out  and  some  time  during  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury work  completely  stopped.  During  the  Re- 
naissance nothing  was  done  except  to  mess  up 
the  forlorn  interior  with  pseudo-classic  ineptitudes, 
and  finally  the  Revolutionists  came  over  to  turn 
the  whole  thing  into  a  storage  place  for  hay. 
In  1823  royalty  conceived  the  scheme  of  restor- 
ing the  ruin  and  completing  the  entire  design  in 
accordance  with  certain  original  plans  which  had 
been  preserved.  It  is  said,  possibly  with  truth, 


ART  IN  THE  RHINELAND  287 

that  the  first  architect,  Master  Gerard,  sold  his 
soul  to  the  devil  as  the  price  for  these  same  plans, 
and  if  so  he  would  perhaps  have  done  better  had 
he  followed  the  practice  of  the  master  masons  of 
a  century  earlier  in  France,  who  preferred  to  deal 
with  other  spiritual  powers  and  not  on  the  basis 
of  trade.  However  this  may  be,  the  work  went  on 
at  the  expense  of  all  Germany,  and  was  finally 
completed  in  1880,  at  a  cost  of  some  five  millions 
of  dollars. 

As  it  stands,  then,  it  is  largely  the  work  of  res- 
toration and  of  nineteenth-century  talent;  hence, 
if  in  the  fortunes  of  war  it  should  be  subjected 
to  the  hail  of  shell  and  shrapnel  from  French 
and  British  batteries,  so  working  out  the  hard 
old  Israelitish  law  of  an  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth 
for  a  tooth,  and  suffering  even  as  Reims  has  suf- 
fered, the  world  would  look  on  with  far  different 
sentiments  since,  apart  from  its  windows  (some 
of  them)  and  pictures  and  tombs,  nothing  would 
be  lost  that  could  not  be  replaced  and  after  a 
better  fashion;  for  after  all  when  you  say  the 
most  you  can  for  the  nineteenth  century  it  will 
generally  be  admitted  that,  even  in  Germany,  it 
was  not  a  stimulating  era  so  far  as  creative  or 
even  archaeological  Gothic  art  is  concerned. 


288  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

Strasbourg  is  much  more  interesting  and  poetic, 
with  great  refinement  and  originality  in  design, 
though  its  taste  is  far  from  impeccable,  its  struc- 
tural sense  gravely  deficient.  The  tendency  is 
wholly  toward  lace-like  and  fantastic  design,  but 
it  has  little  resemblance  to  the  late  French  flam- 
boyant with  its  curving  and  interlacing  lines; 
instead,  it  is  more  suggestive  of  the  English  per- 
pendicular, with  its  scaffolding  of  vertical  lines 
applied  to,  but  not  a  part  of,  the  basic  fabric. 
It  has  no  consistency  of  plan,  for  the  eastern  end, 
with  its  semicircular  apse  and  portions  of  its 
transepts,  is  of  a  singularly  noble  type  of  twelfth- 
century  Romanesque,  while  the  nave  is  mid- 
thirteenth  century  and  the  tower  and  upper 
portion  of  the  west  front  are  a  hundred  years 
later.  Confused  as  it  is,  there  is  an  extraordinary 
charm  about  it  all,  for  every  part  is  personal  and 
distinguished,  full  of  novel  and  poetic  ideas  and 
all  kinds  of  unaffected  touches  of  genius.  The 
wonderful  colour  of  the  exterior  and  the  singularly 
fine  glass  of  the  interior  have  much  to  do  with  its 
general  effect  of  a  delicate  mediaeval  loveliness 
that  makes  amends  for  its  architectural  short- 
comings. 

Of  the  castle  architecture  of  the  Rhine  there  is 


STRASBOURG 


ART  IN  THE  RHINELAND  289 

little  left  from  the  mediaeval  period  from  which 
one  can  gain  an  adequate  idea  of  its  excellence, 
which  was  probably  great.  As  in  Luxembourg, 
everything  has  been  shattered  into  wildly  pictur- 
esque ruins  which  are  outside  the  category  of 
architecture,  and  such  Renaissance  work  as  Heidel- 
berg is  quite  as  far  without  the  same  category, 
though  for  another  reason;  here  even  picturesque- 
ness  of  site  and  dilapidation  cannot  make  amends 
for  ignorance,  assurance,  and  excruciating  taste. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  best  architecture  of  the 
Rhine  is  the  domestic  building  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  the  half  timber,  many- 
gabled  structures  that  give  the  little  Rhine  towns 
a  charm  that  is  unexcelled  and  testify  to  the  native 
sense  of  beauty  in  the  common  people,  when  they 
were  left  alone  and  not  confused  by  the  self-satis- 
fied and  ill-bred  interference  of  the  connoisseur. 

If  Christian  culture  began  too  late  along  the 
Rhine  to  find  a  great  expression  in  architecture, 
the  same  is  not  true  of  painting,  which  followed 
after  and  achieved  much  that  the  older  art  could 
not  accomplish.  The  Teutonic  tribes  of  the 
Rhine  had  always  excelled  in  certain  virtues  of 
frugality,  temperance,  domestic  morality,  and  a 
righteous  revolt  showed  itself  here  against  the 


290  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

corruption  of  the  Church  and  society  in  the  four- 
teenth century  that  followed  the  first  down- 
ward trend  of  medievalism.  Early  in  the  cen- 
tury men  and  women  began  to  draw  away  from 
a  world  with  which  they  had  little  sympathy, 
striving  for  personal  righteousness,  the  sense  of 
an  inner  relation  to  God,  the  attainment  through 
mystical  means  of  escape  from  the  devastating 
wrars,  the  pestilence  and  famine,  the  favouritism 
and  cupidity  and  licentiousness  of  the  Church. 
The  centre  of  these  mystical  brotherhoods  was 
Cologne,  particularly  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
and  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and 
it  is  not  a  mere  coincidence  that  here  at  Cologne 
also,  and  at  the  same  time,  a  new  school  of  paint- 
ing should  come  into  existence,  exactly  as  had 
happened  a  few  years  earlier  in  Siena  and  Flor- 
ence. There  had  been  great  wall  painting  for 
several  centuries,  but  it  had  always  been  an  es- 
sential part  of  architecture,  hieratic,  formal, 
monumental,  impersonal;  now  the  new  spiritual 
impulse  was  to  work  out  an  original  and  very  per- 
sonal form  of  expression  on  the  basis  of  these  ear- 
lier works,  but  at  smaller  scale  and  with  a  minute 
craftsmanship  borrowed  partly  from  the  gold- 
smiths' work  and  the  enamels  for  which  Cologne 


ART  IN  THE  RHINELAND  291 

already  was  famous;  partly  from  the  exquisite 
illumination  of  the  vellum  volumes  of  the  time. 
It  was  somewhere  about  1350  that  Master  Wil- 
helm,  who  holds  the  same  place  in  the  north 
that  was  attained  by  Cimabue  in  the  south,  was 
born.  His  pictures  are  rare  but  there  is  one  of 
great  value  in  Cologne  cathedral,  the  "St.  Clara 
Triptych,"  and  it  shows  all  the  elements  now  at 
work  toward  the  development  of  the  new  art, 
the  fine  and  masterly  line  and  composition,  with 
a  strong  rhythmic  sense  taken  over  from  the  fully 
developed  wall  painting  of  the  preceding  century, 
the  delicate  craftsmanship  of  the  goldsmith,  the 
illuminator,  or  the  worker  in  enamels,  and  the 
extraordinary  personal  quality,  the  direct  human 
appeal,  that  was  furnished  by  the  mystical  seekers 
after  union  with  God  through  a  direct  relation- 
ship outside  the  formalised  institutions  and  prac- 
tices of  the  Church.  You  get  the  quality  best  of 
all  perhaps  from  the  "Madonna  of  the  Bean- 
flower"  in  the  Cologne  Museum,  another  picture 
by  Master  Wilhelm,  and  as  lovely  and  personal 
as  one  could  ask.  There  are  also  the  "Paradise 
pictures,"  equally  human  and  even  more  mystical; 
visions  of  delicate  and  gracious  gardens,  where 
youths  and  ladies  and  children  and  angels  all 


292  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

mingle  in  the  midst  of  flowers  and  singing  around 
the  Queen  of  Heaven  herself;  efforts,  one  might 
think,  to  create  a  paradise  for  the  imagination, 
where  one  could  escape  from  the  too  numerous 
horrors  of  a  none  too  accommodating  world.  The 
more  specifically  devotional  pictures  are  very 
numerous  and  generally  anonymous;  painters 
then  were  craftsmen,  members  of  guilds  devoted 
to  the  upbuilding  of  the  highest  standards  of  work- 
manship, and  caring  little  for  their  own  personal 
fame.  Picture  exhibitions  and  competitions  for 
prizes  and  medals  were  also  unknown,  which  made 
a  difference.  In  all  these  works  is  the  same  sweet 
humanism,  the  invariable  personal  appeal,  and  it 
is  easy  to  understand  that  a  new  art  such  as  this 
must  have  been  a  wonderful  boon  to  a  weary  and 
disappointed  generation. 

The  Teuton  had  at  last  found  a  field  for  the 
expression  of  that  aesthetic  sense  that  was  one  of 
the  inalienable  possessions  of  man  down  to  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  he  made  the  very  best 
of  it,  as  he  was  to  make  the  best  of  the  still  newer 
art  of  music  a  few  centuries  later.  The  world 
wanted  this  new  art,  and  from  Cologne  it  spread 
rapidly  to  the  west  into  Flanders  and  Brabant, 
and  south  to  Franconia  and  Suabia.  To  the 


ART  IN  THE  RHINELAND  293 

school  of  Cologne  Hubert  van  Eyck  owed  much, 
he  could  hardly  have  been  what  he  was  but  for 
Master  Wilhelm  and  his  contemporaries,  but  he 
added  something  of  his  own  Flanders,  and  more 
of  himself,  and  the  art  he  initiated  rose  immea- 
surably above  its  source. 

In  sculpture  also  the  Teuton  found  a  facile  and 
congenial  form  of  expression,  but  this  art  de- 
veloped rather  to  the  north  and  east  of  the  Rhine. 
Hildesheim  was,  of  course,  the  centre,  for  it  was 
here  that  Bishop  Bernward  gathered  or  educated 
his  amazing  craftsmen  in  bronze.  Where  such  an 
artist  came  from,  as  he  who  made  the  cathedral 
doors  and  the  bronze  column,  heaven  alone  knows, 
for  it  was  early  in  the  eleventh  century  that 
these  came  into  existence.  They  began  a  school, 
however,  that  continued  in  Saxony  for  many  cen- 
turies and  had  its  influence  over  all  Germany. 
The  early  thirteenth-century  bronze  font,  also  in 
the  cathedral,  is  one  of  those  masterpieces  that 
defy  comparison.  The  great  school  of  sculpture 
in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  was  that 
which  grew  up  between  the  Elbe  and  the  Hartz 
Mountains,  not  only  in  Hildesheim  but  Halber- 
stadt,  Bamberg,  Freiberg,  Magdebourg,  Naum- 
bourg,  the  masters  of  Magdebourg  ranking  with 


294  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

those  of  Amiens  and  Reims.  Undoubtedly  there 
is  French  influence  here,  perhaps  through  the 
training,  under  the  masters  of  France,  of  the 
craftsmen  who  later  went  back  to  their  native 
lands  to  practise  their  art.  In  Strasbourg  the 
French  influence  is  even  more  clearly  seen  but 
here  it  is  rather  in  the  line  of  the  more  southerly 
schools.  It  is  at  Strasbourg  that  we  find  that 
singular  and  ingenious  masterpiece,  the  "Pillar 
of  the  Angels,"  slender  grouped  shafts  with 
intermediate  niches,  one  above  the  other,  each 
containing  an  exquisite  statue  of  an  apostle,  an 
angel,  or,  at  the  top,  our  Lord  at  the  Day  of 
Judgment.  This  is  one  of  those  sudden  and  un- 
precedented happenings  in  mediaeval  art  that  mark 
the  vast  vitality,  imagination,  and  personal  initi- 
ative of  the  time.  It  has  no  progenitors,  no  suc- 
cessors, it  is  a  sport  of  personal  genius,  and  the 
masterpiece  of  one  Ervin  de  Steinbach,  who  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  architect  for  the  later 
portions  of  the  cathedral. 

Apart  from  Strasbourg,  however,  sculpture 
seems  never  to  have  been  a  favoured  art  in  the 
Rhineland,  and  the  painting  of  Cologne  remains 
its  chief  claim  to  honourable  record,  though  stained 
glass  reached  considerable  heights,  as  is  seen  both 


ART  IN  THE  RHINELAND  295 

at  Cologne  and  Strasbourg,  and  on  definitely 
local  lines.  By  the  fifteenth  century  the  Flemish 
schools  of  art  of  all  kinds  had  succeeded  by  their 
sheer  achievement  in  establishing  their  dominant 
influence  along  the  Rhine,  and  with  the  Renais- 
sance the  lingering  elements  of  an  instinctive 
practice  of  beauty  quite  died  away. 


XV 

THE    FOREST   OF   ARDEN 

WHERE  the  immemorial  Forest  of  the  Ar- 
dennes closes  in  on  the  Moselle  that  winds 
beautifully  to  the  Rhine,  there  is  a  little  land 
that  can  give  us  small  aid  in  the  way  of  art,  for 
the  hand  of  man  and  of  an  implacable  fatality 
has  been  heavy,  and  little  remains,  but  it  is  a 
place  of  infinite  charm  and  of  significance  as  well, 
while  in  the  last  year  its  ancient  name  has  come 
into  the  light  again,  even  as  it  was  some  centuries 
ago.  It  has  borne  many  names,  acknowledged 
many  sovereignties;  Roman  Belgica,  part  of  the 
kingdom  of  the  Ripuarian  Franks,  Austrasia, 
Lorraine,  a  province  of  the  Germanic  Holy  Roman 
Empire,  Burgundy,  the  Netherlands  (Spanish  and 
Austrian),  France  again,  both  of  the  republican 
and  imperial  mode,  then  back  in  an  amorphous 
Germany,  and  now,  crushed  into  a  tiny  but  con- 
centrated state,  an  independent  but  sovereign 
Grand  Duchy  of  Luxembourg,  imprisoned  for  the 
moment  in  dark  fastnesses  of  oppression  where- 

296 


THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN  297 

from  no  word  issues  forth,  but  destined  under 
God  to  a  triumphant  release  and  to  a  restoration 
that  may  mean  a  return  to  earlier  and  wider 
frontiers. 

Luxembourg  means  that  portion  of  the  Heart  of 
Europe  lying  between  the  Meuse  and  the  Moselle, 
and  one  line  drawn  from  Limbourg  to  Treves, 
another  from  Verdun  to  Metz.  It  is  now  a  tithe 
of  this,  but  who  can  say  what  may  be  in  the  fu- 
ture ?  All  its  great  northern  portion  has  for  long 
been  incorporated  in  the  eternally  honourable 
kingdom  of  Belgium,  and  there  it  will  remain,  but 
there  is  always  the  old  Archbishopric  of  Treves 
with  its  Moselle  valley,  and  there  are  the  lands 
along  the  Saar  and  the  new  (and  old)  frontiers  of 
France.  At  present,  as  a  result  of  three  treaties 
in  which  it  played  the  passive  part  of  victim,  it 
is  a  fourth  the  size  it  once  had  under  its  first 
Duke  Wenceslas;  the  first  section  was  lost  in 
1659,  the  second  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna  in 
1815,  the  third  and  largest  at  London  in  1859, 
but,  as  a  Japanese  guide  remarked  at  the  monas- 
tery of  Horiuji,  "The  quality  is  not  dependent 
on  the  numerality  of  quantity,"  and  as  nothing 
was  lost  but  land  the  indomitable  spirit  of  the 
people  remained  intact  and  merely  concentrated 


298  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

itself    still    more    intensely    within    its    shrunken 
borders. 

Luxembourg  lies  along  that  line  where  first 
the  Teuton  blended  with  the  primitive  Gaul,  or 
Celt,  and  where  a  second  mingling  later  took 
place  between  the  result  of  the  first — the  Salian 
Frank — and  the  same  old  Teutonic  stock.  It  is 
the  mating-place  of  races  and  therefore  the  fight- 
ing-place as  well,  and  always  will  remain  so,  as 
they  and  we  now  realise  only  too  clearly.  They 
were  far  enough  apart,  these  Celts  and  Germans, 
to  guarantee  good  progeny.  The  Gaul  was  huge 
of  stature,  blonde,  long-haired,  fond  of  fine  clothes 
and  golden  chains.  He  was  pastoral  and  agri- 
cultural, aristocratic  in  his  social  and  political 
systems,  incontinent,  good-natured,  quick-tem- 
pered, superstitious,  Druidical.  The  Teuton  was 
red-haired,  shaven  except  for  a  fierce  top-knot, 
grim  in  his  clothing,  contemptuous  of  agriculture 
and  of  everything  else  except  fighting;  as  a  youth 
he  wore  an  iron  collar  which  could  not  be  re- 
moved until  he  had  killed  his  man.  Politically  he 
was  ultra-democratic;  socially,  monogamous  and 
chaste;  theologically,  monotheistic.  From  the  fu- 
sion of  these  two  elements  came  the  many  tribes 
of  Gallia  Belgica,  and  in  good  time  most  of  the 


THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN  299 

peoples  of  the  Heart  of  Europe,  of  Flanders, 
Brabant,  Luxembourg,  Lorraine,  the  hither  Rhine- 
land,  Champagne,  Burgundy,  Picardy,  Artois. 
Treves,  head  city  of  the  Treveri,  was  the  natural 
capital  and  so  it  became  under  the  Caesars  when 
they  had  made  their  wilderness  and  called  it 
peace. 

It  did  not  remain  a  wilderness  long;  presently 
came  the  pacific  Caesars  of  a  later  day  and  the 
whole  land  became  first  the  "kitchen-garden  of 
Rome"  and  then  the  Newport  of  the  Empire. 
Fine  roads  cut  the  forests  in  every  direction,  land 
was  cleared,  agriculture  intensified,  so  that  shortly 
the  whole  region  was  a  garden  dotted  with  private 
parks  and  estates.  Treves  was  made  a  great 
city,  with  palaces,  temples,  baths,  amphitheatres, 
the  summer  capital  of  Europe  and  second  in  Gaul 
only  to  Lyons.  A  city  of  manifold  pleasures 
and  as  many  beauties;  rich,  sumptous,  sensuous, 
where  from  the  shores  of  Tiber  and  Bosporus 
enervated  and  exhausted  devotees  of  the  joy  of 
living  came  to  cool  themselves  and  restore  their 
vitality  in  the  fresh  air  and  the  green  river  valleys 
of  this  curiously  picturesque  retreat.  All  along 
the  Moselle  rose  gorgeous  villas  with  their  rooms 
of  sheeted  marble  and  mosaic  and  gilded  cedar 


300  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

and  splendid  fabrics,  their  terraced  gardens  and 
cool  groves  and  wide-spreading  parks.  A  golden 
day-dream  focussed  along  the  windings  of  a  little 
river  and  destined,  the  sleepers  dreamed,  to  en- 
dure for  ever. 

And  then  the  greater  dream  of  empire  began  to 
turn  into  nightmare.  The  Gallic  legions  re- 
volted against  a  weakening  hand  in  Rome,  and 
Caesars  of  a  day  and  a  thousand  votes  fought 
back  and  forth  over  the  land,  and  burned  and 
murdered  and  died  until  peace  came  again,  and 
restoration,  with  real  emperors  refreshing  them- 
selves in  their  imperial  city  of  Treves  and  their 
dim  forests  on  the  hilly  walls  of  the  winding 
Moselle.  War  again,  and  ruin,  this  time  of  a 
nature  to  last  for  generations  and  to  leave  the 
marble  villas  to  the  slow  but  kindly  burial  of 
trees  and  vines  and  moss.  Out  of  the  terrible 
east  the  Huns  came  like  a  flood  with  the  deadly 
Attila  at  their  head,  blind  terror  before  them, 
death  and  silence  behind.  Just  to  the  west,  at 
Chalons,  they  were  beaten  back  and  fled  east- 
ward again  (men  thought  for  ever),  and  what  was 
left  became  part  of  the  new  Frankish  kingdom. 
Of  the  makers  of  this  nation  and  the  stock  from 
which  sprang  Merovings,  Carolings,  and  most  of 


THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN  301 

the  other  royal  houses  of  Europe,  the  Reverend 
T.  H.  Passmore  writes  engagingly  thus: 

The  record  of  this  people,  until  the  close  of  the  fifth 
century,  is  dim  and  discursive.  Up  to  that  time  they  were 
more  like  a  firework  display  than  a  people.  They  appear 
and  disappear  on  the  historic  horizon  confusingly,  the 
only  unifying  condition  being  a  general  and  most  sacred 
sense  of  mission,  the  mission  being  the  demolition  of  the 
universe.  The  first  head  upon  which  history  steadily 
focusses  its  light  is  that  of  the  great  Clovis.  He  was  lord  of 
the  small  Salian  tribe  in  Batavia  and  sacked  and  plundered 
all  around  him  to  such  an  extent  that  the  other  Frankish 
tribes  who  lived  along  the  Belgic  rivers  were  smitten  with 
admiration  and  flocked  to  the  standard  of  so  virtuous  a 
prince.  .  .  .  The  pious  Clovis  was  a  born  diplomatist. 
He  was  a  sanguinary  Teuton,  a  cultured  Roman,  and  a 
Christian  saint  according  to  circumstances.  He  was  great. 

After  clearing  Gaul  of  the  Burgundians  and  other  Ger- 
mans who  still  barred  his  progress,  and  wiping  out  the  Ale- 
manni — those  chronic  foes  whom  Rome  had  found  invincible 
— Clovis  listened  to  the  prayers  of  his  Christian  wife,  Clotilde, 
and  was  baptised  in  Rheims  Cathedral  by  St.  Remigius  with 
three  thousand  of  his  devoted  Franks,  who  would  probably 
have  heard  of  it  again  had  they  made  any  trouble  about 
the  matter.  He  does  not  seem,  however,  to  have  grown  any 
nicer  or  kinder  on  this  account.  St.  Gregory  of  Tours,  his 
biographer  and  panegyrist,  who  was  somewhat  modestly 
endowed  with  the  sense  of  humour,  tells  us  gravely  that  on 
one  occasion,  after  dismissing  with  prayer  a  synod  of  the 
Gallican  Church,  he  quietly  proceeded  to  butcher  all  the 
Merovingian  princes.  Having  pushed  his  arms  into  France, 
he  fixed  on  Paris  as  his  royal  seat;  conquered  the  Goths 
under  Alaric,  his  only  remaining  rivals;  and  was  invested 


302  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

with  purple  tunic  in  St.  Martin's  church  at  Tours.  Twenty- 
five  years  after  his  death  the  Emperor  Justinian  generously 
bestowed  on  his  sons  the  provinces  of  Gaul,  which  they  al- 
ready possessed;  and  most  gracefully  absolved  its  inhabi- 
tants from  their  allegiance  to  himself,  which  had  only  existed 
in  his  own  august  imagination.  Thus  the  French  kingdom 
of  the  Merovingians,  to  the  generation  succeeding  Clovis, 
already  included  all  Gaul  from  western  France  to  the 
Rhine  and  their  suzerainty  reached  to  the  Alps  and  beyond 
them. 

Luxembourg  had  long  been  Christian  after  a 
fashion;  the  first  Bishop  of  Treves  had  been  ap- 
pointed by  St.  Peter  himself,  while  the  Emperor 
Constantine,  who  had  lived  much  in  the  city, 
fostered  the  new  religion  in  every  way.  Later,  at 
the  time  of  the  era-making  Pepin  of  Heristal,  St. 
Willibrord  came  from  England  on  his  great  mis- 
sion to  the  heathen  of  Friesland,  and  while  con- 
verting them,  and  much  of  Norway  and  Denmark 
to  boot,  established  here  at  Echternach  a  great 
monastery  that  was  his  spiritual  power-house, 
from  which  he  drew  the  energy  that  sent  him  on 
his  endless  journeys  and  cruises,  by  land  and  sea, 
for  the  winning  of  souls  to  Christ.  He  did  his 
work  well,  none  better,  and  wherever  he  went 
Christianity  went  with  him,  and  a  new  civilisa- 
tion, a  new  culture,  that  remained  for  many  cen- 
turies after  he  had  been  called  to  his  high  reward, 


THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN  303 

buried  in  his  dear  abbey  at  Echternach  and  en- 
rolled in  the  Kalendar  of  Saints. 

It  was  a  vast  monastery  and  a  magnificent  one, 
but  it  is  a  monastery  no  longer;  for  centuries 
it  continued  to  pour  out  from  its  inexhaustible 
Benedictine  store,  missionaries,  prophets,  priests, 
leaders  and  protectors  of  the  people;  fostering 
education,  agriculture,  the  arts;  establishing  order, 
nursing  a  piety  that  found  its  reward  in  this  world 
through  the  consciousness  of  an  ever-widening 
civilisation,  and  a  greater  reward  in  heaven. 
Then  the  power  and  wealth  grew  too  great  for 
the  equanimity  of  princes,  and  it  was  robbed  by 
one  after  another,  oppressed  by  lay  abbots  in 
commendam,  its  Benedictine  monks  driven  out 
and  secular  canons  intruded,  and  finally  pillaged 
by  recreant  bishops  of  the  new  dispensation  of 
humanism  and  enlightenment,  and  by  that  con- 
centration and  apotheosis  of  the  same,  Le  Roi 
Soleil,  and  so  handed  over  to  the  emissaries  of 
the  deluge  that  followed  him,  the  attractive  ex- 
emplars of  revolution,  who  swept  the  place  clean 
of  books  and  pictures  and  statues  and  all  the 
hoarded  art  of  a  thousand  years — yes,  even  of 
the  poor  ashes  of  the  good  saint  himself — to 
make  place  a  half  century  later  for  the  ashes  and 


304  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

slag  of  blast-furnaces  set  up  within  the  ancient 
walls,  and  for  the  housing  of  soldiers  and  their 
mounts. 

Still,  the  work  could  not  wholly  be  undone, 
Luxembourg  was  a  Christian  state  and  so  it  re- 
mained, through  fair  days  and  foul,  the  fairest 
being  perhaps  those  when,  united  to  Flanders  and 
Brabant  under  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  it  fell 
into  the  charge  of  that  great  lady  and  unofficial 
saint,  Margaret  "of  Malines,"  whose  story  I  have 
tried  to  tell  elsewhere. 

With  the  wars  of  religion  this  peace  and  pros- 
perity came  to  an  end  and  for  two  hundred  years 
all  the  duchy  was  devastated  by  all  the  armies  of 
Europe,  from  those  of  Francis  I  to  the  obscene 
hordes  of  the  French  Republic.  It  had  never 
revolted  against  the  Catholic  religion  nor  against 
its  varied  rulers,  and  its  reward  was  a  slow  and 
savage  extermination.  Cities  were  burned  and 
their  names  forgotten;  great  abbeys  and  churches 
like  those  of  Orval  and  Clairefontaine  were  utterly 
extinguished;  tall  castles  that  crowned  every 
height  of  land  were  blown  up  with  gunpowder; 
fields  and  farms  became  waste  land;  and  through 
starvation,  massacre,  and  exile  the  population 
was  reduced  to  a  tithe  of  its  former  numbers,  and 


THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN  305 

at  last,  by  the  republic  that  came  to  bring  liberty, 
taxed  into  an  all-engulfing  penury. 

The  era  of  enlightenment  had  not  been  wholly 
happy  in  its  action  on  Luxembourg,  but  it  was 
free  at  last,  and,  in  1867,  independent,  as  it  re- 
mained until  that  memorable  day  in  August, 
1914,  the  day  of  broken  treaties,  when  the  little 
Grand  Duchess  backed  her  motor-car  across  the 
bridge,  closing  it  with  a  pathetic  barrier  in  the 
vain  protest  of  honour  against  a  force  that  did 
not  recognise  the  meaning  of  the  word  or  the 
existence  of  the  thing  it  signified. 

Luxembourg  to-day  is  not  a  place  where  one 
may  go  to  revel  in  the  artistic  memorials  of  a 
great  past;  the  great  past  is  there,  and  its  memory 
is  still  green,  but  even  more  than  Brabant  or 
Champagne  has  it  borne  the  grievous  harrowing 
of  endless  wars  and  recrudescent  barbarisms,  not 
the  least  destructive  of  these  visitations  being 
the  nineteenth  century  in  its  satisfying  complete- 
ness, which  saw  many  an  abbey  and  old  haunted 
castle  dismantled,  reduced  to  road-metal,  and 
carted  away  for  the  value  inherent  in  its  raw 
material,  or  turned  to  inconceivably  base  uses 
from  all  of  which  some  pecuniary  profit  might  be 
obtained.  Once  it  was  as  rich  in  enormous  castles 


306  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

as  any  country  in  the  world  that  happily  has  a 
mediaeval  past.  Bourscheid  on  its  great  hill, 
lordly  and  dominating  still  and  a  wilderness  of 
vast  crags  of  masonry,  in  spite  of  all  that  man 
could  do;  Brandenbourg,  rigid  and  riven  in  its 
ring  of  mountains;  Esch,  split  into  towering  and 
sundered  fragments  on  the  raw  cliffs  overhang- 
ing the  Sure;  Hollenfel,  Clervaux,  spared  by  war 
to  fall  victim  to  the  contemptuous  neglect  of 
owners  who  preferred  pseudo-Gothic  villas  with 
all  modern  conveniences;  Beaufort,  with  its  noble 
proportions  and  its  beauty  of  a  later  and  more 
gracious  medievalism;  Vianden,  most  fascinating 
of  all  with  its  dizzy  gables,  and  its  chapel  still  in- 
tact in  spite  of  the  wide  ruin  of  its  surroundings. 
And  every  castle  ruin  is  haunted  to  heart's  desire, 
crowded  with  attested  ghosts  whose  consistent 
habits  and  dependable  visitations  are  a  peculiar 
joy  in  a  world  that  until  a  twelvemonth  ago  could 
not  believe  in  the  impossible  and  promptly  dis- 
counted the  improbable.  Any  peasant  in  Luxem- 
bourg knew  better,  and  not  only  the  ruins  but  the 
whole  duchy  is  honeycombed  by  the  midnight 
prowlings  of  an  entire  population  of  delectable 
phantoms,  while  the  stories  and  legends  of  their 
commerce  in  the  past  with  lords  and  ladies  and 


THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN  307 

knights  and  monks  and  bishops  form  a  literature 
in  themselves. 

In  spite  of  its  losses,  the  land  was  one  of  infinite 
and  unfamiliar  charm;  a  land  of  wide  and  high 
plateaus  cut  by  many  winding  river  courses,  each 
a  possible  journey  of  varying  delights.  Our  and 
Sure  and  Black  Erenz;  Alzette  and  Clerf  and 
White  Erenz,  with  many  others  of  minor  flow, 
cut  the  duchy  in  every  direction,  all  at  last  find- 
ing the  goal  of  their  waters  in  the  magical  Moselle, 
as  it  flows  past  old  Roman  Treves  on  its  devious 
way  to  the  Rhine.  And  it  was  a  kind  of  little 
earthly  paradise  as  well,  for  the  fifty  years  of  its 
well-earned  peace.  A  land  of  farms  and  gardens 
and  pastures,  of  contented  little  villages  and 
river-bordered  hamlets,  and  a  kindly  and  devoted 
people.  Coal  and  iron  have  left  little  mark, 
though  the  efficient  Baedeker  (to  whom  shall  we 
go  for  guidance  on  our  journeys  in  the  long  days 
to  come?),  in  one  of  his  concise  and  unpremedi- 
tately  dramatic  paragraphs  does  say:  "18J^  M. 
Weilerbach,  for  the  iron-foundry  of  Weilerbach 
and  the  former  summer-house  of  the  Abbots  of 
Echternach,  magnificently  situated  amidst  wood" 
— an  antithesis  of  startling  illumination.  Protes- 
tantism passed  it  by,  except  for  purposes  of  plun- 


308  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

der,  and  it  has  always  been  unanimously  and 
enthusiastically  Catholic,  with  a  record  for  public 
and  private  morality  that  puts  any  and  every 
other  part  of  Europe  to  sudden  shame. 

What  is  to  be  its  future  when  the  great  storm 
that  is  cleaning  the  soiled  world  of  its  dust  and 
ashes  of  false  ideals  and  burnt-out  superstitions 
sweeps  away  into  the  hollows  of  a  night  that  is 
only  in  its  darkness  the  promise  of  a  new  day? 
Who  shall  say?  but  any  one  can  weave  his  vision, 
and  to  some  it  already  appears  that,  with  the 
meting  out  of  inadequate  earthly  reward  for  ir- 
reparable bodily  suffering,  will  come  the  lands  to 
the  east  as  far  as  the  Kyll,  with  to  the  south 
Saarbourg,  and  the  far  side  of  the  Moselle  to  the 
Hochwald,  including  ancient  Treves,  no  longer  a 
forgotten  relic  of  an  old  imperialism  but  a  greater 
and  better  and  more  potent  Hague,  a  central 
city  of  Europe  and  of  peace,  where,  under  the 
united  guarantees  of  all  the  states,  is  permanently 
sitting  a  great  council  of  ambassadors  for  the  de- 
vising of  measures  of  common  interest,  the  adjust- 
ment of  international  differences,  the  preservation 
of  a  righteous  peace  between  nations,  and  with 
authority  to  suppress  any  violation  of  treaties  or 
any  wilful  aggression  of  one  state  against  another, 


THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN  309 

by  calling  into  the  field  against  the  offender  all 
the  military  and  naval  forces  of  all  the  other 
powers  signatory  to  an  European  Treaty  of  Per- 
manent Peace  and  represented  in  the  council  of 
ambassadors. 

Or  perhaps  Treves,  with  surrounding  territory 
within  a  five-mile  radius,  might  be  erected  into 
an  international  city  of  council,  surrounded  by 
Luxembourg,  Belgium,  which  may  be  extended  to 
the  Moselle  and  eastward  half-way  to  the  Rhine, 
France,  the  new  frontiers  of  which  would  be  the 
old  eastern  borders  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and  a 
restored  Palatinate  limited  to  the  north  and  east 
by  the  Rhine  and  the  Moselle.  Central  in  this 
circle  of  guarding  states,  with  all  Europe  for  added 
defence  against  any  possible  recrudescence  of  local 
egoism  in  any  place,  Treves  might  again  become  a 
great  city  of  refuge  and  of  Christian  righteousness, 
with  noble  buildings  on  its  circle  of  surrounding 
hills,  a  centre  of  religion  and  education  and  mercy, 
guardian  of  the  peace  of  Europe,  a  living  and 
glorious  symbol  of  the  world  enlightenment  that 
came  through  the  clean  purging  of  a  war  greater 
than  all  former  wars  because  the  need  was  greater. 


XVI 

EX   TENEBRIS   LUX 

HAVE  tried  to  give  some  idea  of  the  contri- 
•*•  butions  of  the  lands  and  the  peoples  in  the 
western  theatre  of  the  war  in  certain  of  the  fields 
of  art;  to  note  the  development  of  culture,  the 
direction  of  human  happenings,  the  bearing  of 
great  men  and  women  who  were  leaders  in  Europe, 
through  an  abbreviation  of  historical  records,  to 
justify  the  giving  to  the  region  between  the  Seine 
and  the  Rhine,  the  Alps  and  the  sea,  the  name  of 
"Heart  of  Europe."  Such  a  survey  of  such  a 
territory  must,  of  necessity,  be  superficial  and  in- 
complete, for  too  many  and  wonderful  things 
happened  there  to  be  recorded  in  a  volume  of 
limited  extent.  Chiefly,  I  have  spoken  of  what 
could  be,  and  is  being,  destroyed,  but  there  is 
much  else  that  is  not  subject  to  annihilation  at 
the  hands  of  furious  men,  the  contributions  to 
music,  to  letters,  to  the  slow-growing  spiritual 
deposit  in  society  through  philosophy,  theology, 

and  religion. 

310 


EX  TENEBRIS  LUX  311 

In  music  alone  the  Heart  of  Europe  has  done 
more,  and  at  different  times,  than  any  similar 
area.  While  the  troubadours  of  the  twelfth 
century  came  into  existence  in  the  sunny  lands  of 
Languedoc,  it  was  in  Aquitaine,  Champagne,  and 
Flanders  that  the  trouveres  developed  the  norm 
of  the  troubadours  "into  something  rich  and 
strange,"  and  under  the  Countess  Marie  of  Cham- 
pagne created  that  beautiful  and  potent  fiction 
of  "courteous  love,"  which  had  issue  in  so  many 
exquisite  phases  of  human  character  and  made 
possible  a  great  school  of  romantic  poets.  They, 
under  the  leadership  of  Chretien  de  Troyes,  made 
for  the  Countess  Marie,  out  of  the  rude  elements 
that  had  come  from  England  and  Wales  through 
Brittany,  the  great  poems  and  romances  of  King 
Arthur  and  his  knights.  The  greatest  of  the 
trouveres  was  Adam  de  la  Hale  and  he  was  born 
in  Arras  in  the  year  1240.  Long  before  him,  how- 
ever, Gottfried  of  Strasbourg,  a  contemporary  of 
Chretien  de  Troyes,  had  made  of  the  tale  of 
Lancelot  and  Guinevere  one  of  the  deathless 
poems  of  the  world,  as  Wolfram  von  Essenbach 
of  Bavaria  was  to  create  its  great  counterpart 
from  the  story  of  Parsifal. 

Very  slowly  in  the  meantime  music  had  been 


312  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

working  out  its  wonderful  growth  from  the  clas- 
sical models  of  SS.  Ambrose  and  Gregory  inter- 
mingled with  the  instinctive  folk-music  of  the 
south,  and  in  the  fourteenth  century  the  leader- 
ship fell  full  into  the  hands  of  Flanders,  where 
monks  and  laymen  set  themselves  to  the  con- 
genial task  of  building  up  a  new  and  richer  music 
on  polyphonic  lines.  Brother  Hairouet,  who  was 
at  work  about  1420;  Binchois,  born  near  Mons 
and  died  in  1460;  Dufay,  born  in  Hainault  and 
trained  in  the  cathedral  at  Cambrai,  were  all,  to- 
gether with  the  English  Dunstable,  potent  leaders 
in  the  great  work,  laying  well  the  foundations  on 
which  a  few  centuries  later  was  to  be  erected  the 
vast  and  magnificent  superstructure  of  Bach  and 
his  successors.  In  the  second  period,  that  of 
the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Antwerp  be- 
came the  centre,  Jean  de  Okeghem,  of  Termonde, 
the  leader  in  the  intellectualising  of  music  and 
the  establishing  it  on  methodical  lines,  while  in  the 
third  period,  of  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  and  the 
beginning  of  the  following  century,  Josquin  des 
Pres  led  the  course  back  toward  a  purer  beauty, 
though  through  modes  that  were  increasingly 
clever  in  their  elaborate  virtuosity.  After  this 
the  lead  passed  across  the  Rhine,  with  memorable 


EX  TENEBRIS  LUX  313 

results  a  century  later,  when  the  great  cycle, 
from  Bach  to  Brahms,  rounded  itself  into  a  per- 
fect ring. 

The  era-making  movements  in  religion  all  be- 
gan outside  our  territorial  limits  at  Monte  Cas- 
sino,  Cluny,  Clairveaux,  but  it  was  through  St. 
Benedict  of  Aniane  that  Charlemagne  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle  effected  his  regeneration  of  the  Church 
and  his  initiation  of  a  new  Christian  education 
and  culture;  St.  Bruno,  of  Cologne,  sometime  head 
of  the  cathedral  school  of  Reims,  was  the  founder 
of  the  Order  of  Carthusians;  St.  Chrodegang, 
Archbishop  of  Metz,  brought  into  existence  the 
Canons  Regular  of  St.  Augustine,  who  introduced 
into  cathedral  chapters  the  order  and  discipline 
of  monasticism;  St.  Norbert,  of  Xanten,  created 
the  Order  of  Premontre,  one  of  the  most  benef- 
icent and  beautiful  of  the  religious  brotherhoods 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  while  the  "Imitation  of 
Christ,"  the  most  purely  spiritual  and  devotional 
work  of  the  time,  was  the  product  of  Thomas  a 
Kempis,  an  obscure  monk  of  the  Netherlands. 
In  the  development  of  Christian  mysticism  the 
Rhine  valley  stands  pre-eminent,  though  the 
greatest  of  all  those  of  this  school  of  combined 
thought  and  vision  was  Hugh  of  St.  Victor,  of 


314  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

the  monastery  of  Augustinian  Canons  in  Paris, 
on  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  where  now  is  the  Jardin 
des  Plantes.  The  ancient  tradition  is  that  he 
was  born  near  Ypres,  though  recent  researches 
seem  to  indicate  that  he  may  have  been  a  son  of 
the  Count  of  Blankenburg  in  Saxony.  In  any 
case,  he  was  the  great  expositor  of  sacramental 
religion  and  philosophy  as  Charlemagne's  Rad- 
bertus  Paschasus  was  the  great  defender  of  the 
true  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation.  If,  indeed, 
Hugh  of  St.  Victor  was  a  product  of  Flanders,  then 
the  credit  goes  there  of  having  given  birth  to  one 
of  the  noblest  and  most  penetrating  minds  the 
world  has  known,  one  that  ranks  with  that  great- 
est pure  intellect  of  all  time,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas. 
Whether  one  accepts  the  mysticism  of  the 
Rhine  or  not  does  not  matter;  it  was  a  potent 
element  in  the  flowering  of  Christian  piety  and 
the  development  of  Catholic  theology,  and  Eliza- 
beth of  Schonau,  Hildegarde  of  Bingen,  Mary  of 
Ognies,  Liutgard  of  Tongres,  Mech tilde  of  Magde- 
bourg,  are  all  names  that  connote  a  poignancy  of 
spiritual  experience  that  proves  both  the  personal 
exaltation  of  the  time  and  the  quality  of  the  blood 
that  had  issue  in  character  such  as  theirs.  This 
mystical  vision  of  the  holy  women  of  the  Rhine 


EX  TENEBRIS  LUX  315 

is  simply  an  extreme  intensification  of  the  same 
vision  that  was  given  in  lesser  measure  and  in 
different  ways  to  all  the  creative  artists,  philoso- 
phers, and  theologians  of  the  Middle  Ages,  from 
Othloh  of  the  eleventh  to  St.  Bonaventure  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  and  it  had  a  great  part 
in  determining  and  fixing  the  artistic  manifesta- 
tion of  this  amazing  time.  Both  as  a  result  and 
an  influence  it  is  vastly  important  and  not  to  be 
ignored.  Out  of  it  came  much  of  that  marvellous 
symbolism  of  the  mass  and  the  cathedral  so  ex- 
plicitly set  forth  by  the  monk  Durandus  and 
Vincent  of  Beauvais,  and  for  its  good  offices  here 
alone  the  world  owes  it  a  deep  and  lasting  grati- 
tude. 

One  is  tempted  to  go  on  through  other  fields 
where  the  harvest  is  plenteous,  but  an  end  must 
be  made,  and  it  is  here.  There  remains  the  ques- 
tion of  the  issue  of  it  all — whether  out  of  this  latest 
devastation  that  so  adequately  follows  those  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, of  Protestantism  and  the  wars  of  religion, 
of  the  Hundred  Years'  War  with  England,  any 
compensation  may  come  for  the  progressive  (and 
as  yet  unfinished)  destruction  of  the  art  records 
of  a  great  past.  If  we  consider  alone  the  wide 


316  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

ruin  in  Flanders  and  Brabant,  in  Artois  and 
Picardy  and  Champagne,  there  seems  no  possible 
compensation  for  what  we  ourselves  knew  and 
now  have  lost  for  ever.  Nevertheless,  the  law  of 
the  universe  is  death  that  life  may  come;  and  out 
of  this  present  death  that  is  so  immeasurably 
more  wide-spread  and  inclusive  than  any  known 
before,  even  when  the  Huns  or  the  Moslems 
were  on  their  deadly  march  across  Europe,  there 
should  come  a  proportionately  fuller  life,  a  "life 
more  abundant,"  than  that  which  is  now  in  dis- 
solution. If  this  is  so,  if  we  can  look  across  the 
plains  of  death  and  immeasurable  destruction  to 
the  dimly  seen  peaks  of  the  mountain  frontiers  of 
a  new  Land  of  Promise,  then  we  can  see  Louvain 
and  Liege,  Ypres  and  Arras,  Laon  and  Soissons 
and  Reims  pass  in  the  crash  and  the  dim  smoke  of 
obliteration,  content  with  their  tragic  destiny, 
even  as  we  can  see  poured  out  as  a  new  oblation 
the  ten  millions  of  lives,  the  tears  of  an  hundred 
millions  of  those  who  follow  down  into  the  Valley 
of  the  Shadow  of  Death. 

Is  it  all  a  vain  oblation?  There  is  the  crucial 
question  and  the  answer  is  left  with  us.  This  is 
no  war  of  economic  and  industrial  rivalry,  of 
jealous  dynasties,  of  opposed  political  theories; 


EX  TENEBRIS  LUX  317 

it  is  not  the  inevitable  result  of  a  malignant 
diplomacy  from  Frederick  the  Great  and  Metter- 
nich  to  Disraeli  and  the  German  Kaiser;  it  is  not 
even  the  last  act  in  a  drama  ushered  in  by  Ma- 
chiavelli  and  brought  to  its  denouement  at  Potts- 
dam.  All  these  and  myriad  other  strands  have 
gone  to  the  weaving  of  the  poisoned  shirt  of 
Nessus,  but  they  all  are  blind  agents,  tools  of  a 
dominant  and  supreme  destiny  by  which  are 
brought  about  the  events  that  are  only  the  way 
of  working  of  an  unescapable  fate.  The  war  is  a 
culminating  catastrophe,  but  it  is  as  well  the 
greatest  mercy  ever  extended  to  men,  for  it  may 
be  made  the  means  of  a  great  purging,  the  atone- 
ment for  the  later  sins  of  the  world,  the  redemp- 
tion from  a  wilful  blindness  and  folly  that  are 
not  consonant  with  the  will  of  God. 

There  is  a  stern  propriety  in  the  centring  around 
the  Cathedral  of  Reims  of  the  first  phase  of  the 
great  conflict,  and  in  its  slow  and  implacable 
demolition.  Long  ago  Heinrich  Heine,  the  poet 
of  the  German  people,  though  not  himself  a  Ger- 
man, saw  clearly  the  coming  ruin  and  wrote  as 
follows : 

Christianity — and  this  is  its  highest  merit — has  in  some 
degree  softened,  but  it  could  not  destroy,  the  brutal  German 


318  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

joy  of  battle.  When  once  the  taming  talisman,  the  Cross, 
breaks  in  two,  the  savagery  of  the  old  fighters,  the  senseless 
Berserker  fury  of  which  the  northern  poets  sing  and  say  so 
much,  will  gush  up  anew.  That  talisman  is  decayed,  and 
the  day  will  come  when  it  will  piteously  collapse.  Then 
the  old  stone  gods  will  rise  from  the  silent  ruins,  and  rub 
the  dust  of  a  thousand  years  from  their  eyes.  Thor,  with 
his  giant's  hammer,  will  at  last  spring  up,  and  shatter  to 
bits  the  Gothic  cathedrals. 


Better  than  any  other,  he  has  declared  the 
nature  of  this  war  that  arose  a  century  after  his 
death.  Thor,  the  impersonation  of  conscienceless 
and  unmitigated  force,  shatters  in  pieces  the 
Gothic  cathedrals  because  he  and  they  are  an- 
titheses and  they  cannot  exist  in  the  same  world. 
Like  Barbarossa  sitting  stonily  in  his  dim  cave 
under  ground,  century  after  century,  while  his 
beard  grows  through  the  rocky  table  before  him, 
waiting  for  the  call  that  will  send  him  forth  into 
the  world  again,  primitive  force  and  primitive 
craft  have  sullenly  awaited  the  day  when  the 
Christian  dispensation  passes  and  they  issue 
again  into  the  light.  In  the  fulness  of  time  their 
day  arrives  and  their  first  task  is  to  destroy  the 
symbol  of  their  ended  bondage.  With  the  name 
of  Christ  on  their  lips  and  the  boast  of  Christian 
civilisation  in  their  mouths,  the  nations  and  the 


EX  TENEBRIS  LUX  319 

peoples  forsake  Christianity  until  only  the  nomen- 
clature remains  and  the  memorials  of  its  power 
and  glory. 

Reims  falls,  but  that  which  built  Reims  fell  long 
ago,  while  the  devious  undermining  and  the  blind 
sapping  began  even  while  the  last  cubits  were 
being  added  to  its  stature,  and  since  then  has 
been  only  a  steady  progression  in  strength  and 
assurance  of  its  antitheses — of  materialism,  in- 
tellectualism,  secularism,  industrialism,  opportu- 
nism, efficiency;  founded  on  the  coal  and  iron  of 
the  Scar  of  Europe  and  on  the  sinister  and  in- 
gratiating philosophy  that  came  out  of  a  re- 
entrant paganism,  thrived  under  the  fertilisation 
of  an  evolutionary  empiricism,  flowered  in  a 
Nietzsche,  a  Treitschke,  and  a  Bernhardi.  And  al- 
ways it  presented  itself  in  a  gracious  guise;  in- 
tellectual emancipation,  humanitarianism,  social 
service,  democratic  liberty,  evolution,  parliamen- 
tary government,  progress,  direct  approach  of 
each  soul  to  God.  It  all  sounded  fine  and  high  and 
noble,  and  on  the  30th  day  of  July,  1914,  there 
could  have  been  hardly  a  thousand  men  in  the 
world,  apart  from  those  in  the  secret,  who  would 
not  have  said — there  were  not  a  thousand  in 
Europe  who  did  not  believe — that  man  in  his 


320  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

regular  progress  from  lower  ever  to  higher  things 
had  achieved  a  plane  where  the  wars  and  savagery 
and  lies  of  the  past  were  no  longer  possible. 

And  in  one  week  from  that  fateful  30th  of  July 
the  cloud  castle  had  dissolved  in  a  rain  of  blood. 
Could  conviction  have  come  to  the  world  in  any 
other  way?  Would  the  diseased  body  have  re- 
acted to  a  gentle  prophylactic,  could  the  Surgeon 
have  spared  His  knife?  Since  the  knife  is  used, 
the  answer  admits  of  no  dispute,  but  will  it  be 
enough?  This  is  the  question  that  is  asked  on 
every  battle-field  of  a  world  at  war;  the  lesson  is 
set  for  the  learning — will  the  nations  learn  ?  In 
so  far  as  they  have  diverged  from  what  Reims 
stood  for;  from  Leo  IX  and  Gregory  VII  and 
Innocent  III;  from  Edward  I  and  Ferdinand  III 
and  Louis  IX;  from  Eleanor  of  Guienne  and 
Blanche  of  Castile  and  Margaret  of  Malines;  from 
St.  Bernard,  St.  Norbert,  and  St.  Anselm;  from 
Albertus  Magnus  and  Hugh  of  St.  Victor  and  St0 
Thomas  Aquinas,  just  so  far  have  they  to  return, 
bringing  with  them  not  empty  hands  but  all  the 
great  good  winnowed  from  the  harvest  of  grain 
and  chaff  they  have  reaped  in  those  years  of  spir- 
itual and  material  and  national  disorder  that  be- 
gan when  the  dizzy  fabric  of  medievalism  trembled 


EX  TENEBRIS  LUX  321 

to  its  base  at  the  exile  at  Avignon  and  "piteously 
collapsed"  between  the  nailing  at  Wittenberg 
and  the  sansculotte  throning  of  the  "Goddess 
of  Reason"  in  the  desecrated  cathedral  of  Notre 
Dame.  There  is  good  grain  in  plenty,  but  it  is 
sowed  along  with  the  chaff  and  the  tares,  and 
now  for  the  last  harvesting  the  grain  has  germi- 
nated only  to  dwindle  and  die,  for  the  tares  have 
sprung  up  and  choked  it  and  the  red  garnering 
is  of  tares  alone. 

Men  would  think,  as  they  follow  the  scarlet 
annals  of  war,  that  the  lesson  was  sufficiently 
clear  even  for  pacificists  to  read  as  they  run,  but 
is  it  so?  France  reads  and  learns,  gloriously  re- 
generate, blotting  out  the  memory  of  old  folly 
with  her  blood  of  sacrifice,  turning  again  as  her 
first  King  Clovis  was  adjured  by  St.  Remi  of 
Reims,  destroying  what  she  worshipped  a  year 
ago,  worshipping  what  then,  and  for  two  centuries 
before,  she  had  destroyed.  Again  France  shows 
the  way,  traversing  it  with  bleeding  feet  and  with 
many  tears;  Russia  is  learning  it,  though  she  had 
less  to  unlearn;  Belgium  must  have  learned  it 
through  her  blind  martyrdom;  but  how  of  the 
others?  Is  England  learning,  and  Italy;  will 
Germany  learn,  and  Austria;  will  America  learn, 


322  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

standing  aloof  from  the  smoking  altar  of  sacri- 
fice; will  the  Church  learn,  there  in  trembling 
isolation  while  again  Peter  listens  for  the  crow- 
ing of  the  cock?  If  not,  if  when  silence  comes 
down  on  a  decimated,  an  exhausted,  a  bankrupt 
world,  the  old  ways  are  sought  again  and  men  go 
on  as  before,  then  the  myriad  lives  and  the  dreary 
rain  of  tears  are  indeed  a  vain  oblation,  and  all 
will  be  to  do  over  again.  God  sets  no  lesson  that 
need  not  be  learned,  and  unless  out  of  it  all  comes 
an  old  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  then  the  lesson 
is  set  again,  as  time  after  time  it  was  set  for  im- 
perial Rome,  until  a  century  of  war  and  pestilence 
and  famine  broke  down  her  insolent  pride  and 
made  from  the  ruins  of  her  vainglory  a  founda- 
tion for  a  new  civilisation  in  the  strength  of  the 
Christianity  she  had  denied. 

And  if  the  lesson  is  learned  by  all  tongues  and 
all  peoples,  as  we  must  believe  will  be,  then  the 
horror  of  human  loss,  the  bitterness  of  Ypres  and 
Louvain  and  Reims  will  receive  its  compensation, 
for  out  of  death  will  come  life  and  no  man  will 
have  died  in  vain,  no  work  of  art  will  have  per- 
ished without  a  return  in  kind.  To  lose  Reims 
and  regain  after  long  years  the  impulse  and  the 
power  to  build  after  the  same  fashion  would  be 


EX  TENEBRIS  LUX  323 

more  than  ample  compensation.  We  have  tried 
for  many  centuries  and  have  failed;  no  man  has 
built  anything  approaching  it  for  seven  hundred 
years,  nor  has  any  one  matched  the  statue  of 
Our  Lady  at  Paris,  or  the  "Worship  of  the  Lamb" 
at  Ghent,  or  the  glass  of  Chartres,  or  the  tapes- 
tries of  Arras,  or  the  metal  work  of  Dinant  and 
Tournai.  There  was  something  lacking,  some  once 
indwelling  spirit  had  been  taken  away,  and  though 
we  tried  to  reassure  ourselves  by  our  boasting  in 
far-away  lines  of  accomplishment — parliamentary 
government,  manhood  suffrage,  clever  mechanical 
devices,  deductive  science,  mastery  of  earth  forces 
hitherto  unknown,  industrialism,  high  finance, 
favourable  balance  of  trade,  evolutionary  philoso- 
phy, public-school  systems,  vocational  training,  or 
what-not;  though  we  even  made  the  effort  to  exalt 
the  Pantheon  and  Fifth  Avenue  to  rivalry  with 
Amiens,  the  Sieges  Allee  into  an  emulation  of  the 
statues  of  Reims,  the  Salon  and  Luxembourg  and 
Royal  Academy  above  the  primitives  of  Flanders — 
it  was  all  unconvincing  to  ourselves  and  in  the 
end  we  came  to  say  that,  after  all,  it  did  not  matter 
anyway,  art  was,  "in  the  ultimate  analysis,"  only 
a  dispensable  amenity  of  life,  which  could  go  on 
very  well  without  it.  Then  came  the  revelation 


324  HEART  OF  EUROPE 

of  1914  and  we  saw  our  foolishness,  realising  at 
last  that,  "amenity"  or  no,  art  did  indicate  the 
existence  in  a  society  of  something  without  which 
it  was  bound  to  decay  to  the  point  of  extinction; 
and  as  the  monuments  we  had  despised  because 
they  exceeded  our  own  powers  of  achievement 
were  one  by  one  taken  from  us,  we  saw  architec- 
ture and  painting  and  sculpture  and  all  the  other 
arts  in  a  new  light  and  offered  our  reverence,  too 
late,  to  what  we  had  lost  for  ever. 

Whatever  the  issue  of  the  war,  the  world  can 
never  be  the  same,  but  a  very  different  place;  and 
amongst  the  differences  will  be  a  new  realisation 
of  the  nature  and  function  of  art.  All  the  follies 
of  the  last  fifty  years — didacticism.  Bavarian  il- 
lustration, realism,  "new  art,"  impressionism, 
"cubism,"  boulevardesque  and  neo-Gothic  and 
revived  Roman  architecture — all  the  petty  and 
insincere  and  premeditated  fashions  must  go,  and 
in  their  place  come  a  new  sincerity,  a  new  sense 
of  self -consecration. 

The  real  things  of  life  are  coming  into  view 
through  the  revealing  fires  of  the  battle-field,  and 
the  new  experiences  of  men  confronted  at  last 
by  everlasting  truths.  With  the  destruction  of 
each  work  of  old  art  comes  a  new  duty  that  de- 


EX  TENEBRIS  LUX  325 

mands  all  that  is  best  and  strongest  and  most  sin- 
cere in  every  man — the  duty  of  making  good  the 
loss,  in  kind;  the  duty  of  building  a  new  civilisa- 
tion and  a  new  culture  on  the  old  foundations 
now  revealed  through  the  burning  away  of  the 
useless  cumbrances  of  futile  superstructures;  the 
duty  of  making  a  Cathedral  of  Reims  possible 
again,  not  through  self-conscious  and  competent 
premeditation  but  because  at  last  men  have  come 
to  their  senses,  regained  their  old  standard  of 
comparative  values,  and  so  can  no  more  fail  to 
build  in  the  spirit  of  Reims  and  in  reverence  for 
the  eternal  truths  it  enshrined  and  set  forth  than 
could  those  who  built  it  seven  centuries  ago  in 
the  sweat  of  their  brows,  the  joy  of  their  hearts, 
and  the  high  devotion  of  their  souls. 


\ 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN     INITIAL    FINE     OF     25     CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  S1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


OCT    11  1932 


29  1932 


MAR    12  193G 
NOV  21  K 


MAR  20  1943 


17Apr'5*-pw 


IN  STACKS 

FEB  15  1958 

REC'D  LO 
IHAY1319S3 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


CQDSSblSSb 


331259 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


